The Smiler - General Discussion

[ChocolateStarfish]

Fastrack is not a favorate of mine, don't get me started on that.

 

[Jon]

I remember in 2005, Rita too had a bit of a semi-permanent cattlepen outside the tire.

They should make the queue neater, make it take up less space. It should just go out-and-back tightly to the X-Sector entrance.

 

[JAMMY_Jaunts]

Quick question. Considering that one of the trains on The Smiler is A LOT rougher than the others, rattling around and sounding awful as if there are many nuts and bolts loose, how long do you think it will be for this to be addressed? I wouldn't want one ride on the rough train to mare the experience that my friends get who only visit once yearly. Also, does anybody know which train is actually the troublesome one?

 

[Alastair]

Quick question. Considering that one of the trains on The Smiler is A LOT rougher than the others, rattling around and sounding awful as if there are many nuts and bolts loose, how long do you think it will be for this to be addressed? I wouldn't want one ride on the rough train to mare the experience that my friends get who only visit once yearly. Also, does anybody know which train is actually the troublesome one?

Considering it's made it this far through the season without being altered, I would suggest that they won't correct that train until next season at the earliest.

 

[jmc]

Rode The Smiler several times via SRQ yesterday, I have a few gripes with how the system is run.

Member of staff stood trying to batch 3 seperate queues (SRQ, 'Ambulant disabled', and main queue) clearly struggling. Have to wait for baggage hold to be clear to allow each queue to be allowed forward. SRQ seems to suffer hugely for this. You can be waiting ages to be batched and get to the station area with no single riders there so you can clearly be waiting extra time unnecessarily. The member of staff there clearly gets very stressed out trying to manage the flow of queues, especially with particular members of staff in the baggage drop seemingly not caring and having chats in between taking bags. Very frustrating.

 

[Andrew]

Some theming in the single rider queue has been damaged by a rider...

Copyright to Trumans Fones

I hope this gets repaired quickly. It isn't good to have a new ride ruined like this already!

 

[BigAl]

The "theming" was never going to last long anyway. All of the stickers theming has started to be picked off from all of the supports too.

Also, the guy at the entrance to The Smiler today said the queue would be two hours yet we were already leaving X-Sector within 50 minutes of entering the queue for it.

 

[djtruefitt]

To be fair it serves Alton Towers right for going for cheap options for themeing such as the stickers in the queue line building, and the matt paint used on the stairs. On opening day when I spotted the stickers in the queue line building, I said they wouldn't last long, especially when you are sometimes stood in the single rider queue for 30 minutes and not move at all, and within a month they are being peeled off! I'm sure they wont be replaced. Should have either left the bits blank where guests can reach, or painted them on properly (with gloss paint!).

 

[BigDave]

We all knew this was going to happen. They need a more permanent solution to half the painted on effects. The exit passage for example has some great illusions, but the walls get dirty and you can make out the brick work under it so it spoils the effect. I think a bit of money during closed season should be spent to make it more durable and more likely to last longer. Putting a fence, even if its clear perspex will help avoid guests damaging things.

 

[Dave]

Stickers seem to be Merlin Studios stock theming technique, yet they still haven't worked out that people like to peel them off.

It's odd, most people learn from past experience

 

[AstroDan]

The Smiler today managed to get its queue down to only 45 minutes at 4.30pm today.



Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Dave]

The Smiler today managed to get its queue down to only 45 minutes at 4.30pm today.



Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Was the park quiet?

 

[Stevie]

I really don't like how they've decorated the walls in the building, the indoor queue-line and the exit path. It just seemed really cheap and tacky, especially the stickers. Also, the way you can see the breeze block outline in the exit, really puts me off. I wish they could have at least plastered it over and painted it. I'm sure it wouldn't have been that difficult or expensive to do.

 

[BigAl]

The main car park and the smaller car park next to Splash were both full by around 12 o'clock but there weren't too many coaches today compared to previous weeks where there have been more coaches than the coach park could handle.

Also the team operating The Smiler were firing trains around the track again which I can only hope continues on into the next season, and so on. The queue seemed to get smaller once we'd been on (got off it at about 10:50 after waiting just under 50 minutes). Wish I'd been there longer to see what it was like at other times, but hopefully the ride won't be getting queues close to three hours again until Scarefest and the fireworks (fingers crossed that won't happen though ).

 

[Amy]

One of the projectors in the projection room was off today. It really made a difference IMO, that corner of the room seemed really dark and dull.

We had an unfortunate experience with an extremely rude queue-jumper today in the SRQ, but I have to say that the ride-op was great and kicked him out just as he was about to get on the ride

 

[Jonathan]

We had an unfortunate experience with an extremely rude queue-jumper today in the SRQ, but I have to say that the ride-op was great and kicked him out just as he was about to get on the ride

I do love it when I hear of staff members doing that to queue-jumping guests. <3

 

[BigAl]

One of the projectors in the projection room was off today. It really made a difference IMO, that corner of the room seemed really dark and dull.

We had an unfortunate experience with an extremely rude queue-jumper today in the SRQ, but I have to say that the ride-op was great and kicked him out just as he was about to get on the ride

That's the problem with relying on projectors without any physical theming whatsoever to back it up. If a projector dies, so does the experience. :/

Glad to hear about the queue jumper being dealt with properly as well!

 

[Harv]

Personally, I found that projection room to be the worst part of The Smiler; it was dark, overheated and tedious. It would benefit enormously from physical theming and some enhanced ventilation.

 

[djtruefitt]

One of the projectors does seem to have a problem and keeps turning off (I think it overheats and turns off), its the one in the right corner of the main queue line. But after a few minutes it does restart it self and goes back to normal.

The indoor queue bit would be much nicer if it had air conditioning in there, and maybe a bit more light in some places.

 

[Dave]

It needs some air-con in there if only for the sake of the projectors. I like the exit theming though i agree it would have been better if they had plastered the walls first.

As for the projector room, i really like it but the use of stickers is just silly. Merlin Studios need to start expanding their horizons when it comes to theming.