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The Smiler - General Discussion

Nope. All the reserved spaces with The Smiler Bedroom signs have the exact same lettering/numbering. Would be pretty cool if they did have the room numbers like that on them though!
 
An old school mate is up visiting his folks, and said to me "is the smiler trying to regress the riders back to childhood. Well it does start with a paddling pool"
 
Went on The Smiler 3 times today and wow, what a ride! I honestly think it's better than Nemesis, something I never thought I'd say after hearing all the negative hype about it. The inside section really set the tone for the rest of the ride, was much more intense and fast than I expected and from them on it was just brilliant, I loved the inverted drops and the double roll right at the end was so forceful, definitely my favourite part of the ride.

Overall the entire ride is just insane, I still had no idea what was coming next on my last ride even though I'd been on it twice before, plus the queueline wasn't as bad as I expected, loved how close you are to the ride for parts of and that room with the effects just before you go on the ride was pretty cool.

Overall The Smiler is a 10/10 for me, sorry Nemesis but for me you're not the best ride at Alton Towers anymore. :)
 
So, The Smiler's shop audio was released not too long ago, and it pretty much only just occurred to me that it might sound pretty good if married up with the original ride theme... And my god does it. No changes necessary, they sync up absolutely perfectly, and it sounds pretty amazing to boot.

So, I threw some motion graphics together, and now...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3okrfqY_JqU#ws

Hope everyone enjoys!
 
I must say I had a very good ride on The Smiler yesterday, my first good ride for a while. So that made a nice change. Will be interesting to see what work is done over the closed season and then see if there any noticeable differences when riding next year.

:)
 
GaryH said:
Jono...loving that mix....... But...... That mix they did at fireworks......must....have.....it!!
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It's like they somehow made the catchiest ride theme music ever... Even catchier :twirly:
 
BigDave said:
I really want the mashup of The Smiler tune, Icona pop and Dizzee Rascal
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I want the IconHA Pop remix so much too! That whole section would be lovely to have to be honest!

As for the ride itself, I didn't manage a ride in the dark this weekend but I was lucky enough to be on the front row at dusk. It was sublime. Really really cemented to me just how damn good it is as a roller coaster.

Let's hope it receives some decent TLC this closed season.


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Scott said:
Let's hope it receives some decent TLC this closed season.
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I hope they get around to repairing the vinyls on the walls in the indoor queue section, especially in the single rider line where they are almost half peeled off. The railings are also chipped after a lot of heavy use this year.
 
I thought that now the season is over I would post an honest assessment of The Smiler in the form of positives and negatives. I have been very critical of The Smiler on here in recent weeks and months so hopefully this post can show that I don't think it's all bad!

Positives:

- The marketing; this was done extremely well on the whole and seems to have been successful.
- The theme; I love the theme, it's a great concept and I think it's executed pretty well.
- The music; it's catchy, long and there are different variations.
- The imposing nature of the ride; the mess of mangled steel does look stunning.
- The ride itself (when smooth); unfortunately it has not always been smooth for me which has somewhat dampened the experience but on the few smooth rides I have had it has been very good.

Negatives:

- The delays; these were constant and extremely frustrating
- The problems since opening; there have been far too many and it is something they need to put right over the closed season. They cannot afford to have the same number of problems again in 2014.
- The jolts; these seems to have become more pronounced as the ride has been open longer, especially the one on the first inverted drop.
- Some of the theming quality; stickers peeling in the first year is not good.



On the whole I think The Smiler has been a good addition for the park. There is no doubt that it has brought people to the park. For me the ride itself is too inconsistent. When I get a smooth ride I do really like it. However more often than not I get a ride that causes me pain one way or another.

It is a shame that The Smiler has almost been overshadowed by the problems it has suffered. It has caused a lot of downtime and therefore a lot of unhappy guests who never got to ride it. It's also given the ride a bad image thanks to the media attention gained; I heard quite a few people on park over the weekend talking about the latest incident that had been in the news.

I think, or at least hope, that Towers will learn a lot from The Smiler. It has been a good example of how not to plan a big new rollercoaster. I'm sure that Towers do realise this though. I hope they can sort out some of the problems over the closed season. If they can't then I do fear that The Smiler could have a short lifespan at the park.

:)
 
Noticed something as well I don't think has been posted about yet. After watching a few videos here and there about the ride, I believe the Smiler was intended to have on-ride videos available from the get go which never made it because of how behind schedule the ride was. Take a look at these two pictures:

Firstly, we see a DVD case on the desk seen in the 'Buy The Smiler' videos.

7n4d.png


At this stage, I'd normally be willing to go 'Oh, they thought about it then forgot about it. No big deal', however it also looks as if the trains were ready to receive cameras for on ride videos all along. Take a look here:

bse1.png


Looking from any row except the front... The seats have this curious bracket with what looks like a round mounting plate going between them. There's one of these on the left hand side, and then another one on the right hand side for each row, save the front.

It would seem pointless to have them there if they didn't do anything, so us this a sign that on ride cameras were planned right from the off? I wonder if we'll see something installed there next season?
 
At least one of the trains already has cameras mounted to those brackets. It'll probably be fully installed over closed season
 
Yea one train or certainly one row certainly had cameras on it, similar to those on Swarm. I imagine it will get installed this closed season. There are screens in the photo shop which I think must be for the Videos, as all they displayed this season was the Smiler logo all the time.
 
Ah, lap bars...Merlin and Alton...you are a bunch of bampots for not giving it that treatment. :mad:
 
Although I don't find The Smiler I'd be hard pressed not to admit that lap bars would've been better. The freedom and comfort offered by lap bars & lap bar styled restraints is unparalleled. It's a shame that Merlin decided against using them, despite them being the default configuration for Infinity trains.
 
QTXAdsy said:
Ah, lap bars...Merlin and Alton...you are a bunch of bampots for not giving it that treatment. :mad:
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Perhaps it wasn't Alton or Merlin's decision and they were advised otherwise by a greater power?

For example, I'd imagine the Health and Safety Executive take great interest in how the UK's number one theme park operates.
 
I'd be interested if the H&S executive actually are against lap bars.

However if it's OK on US coasters, and OK at Drayton...

If it was for any other reason than they were forced to, then it's a missed opportunity.

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