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Wicker Man - General Discussion - Part Two

Matt N said:
I haven’t ridden InvadR to compare, but I personally prefer Wicker Man to Thirteen by a considerable distance; as much as I really like Thirteen, I think Wicker Man just feels a lot faster, with more (and stronger) airtime, and generally feels a lot more thrilling, while still being pretty smooth, comfortable and rerideable!
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If Thirteens outdoor section was 2-3 times longer it would be a much better ride. But the first bit is too slow and too short.
 
If you haven’t already seen; the first notable Wicker Man development for 2021 is that the screens within the wicker man structure itself have made a triumphant return:

Great to see these back!
 
Out of interest, have any of the TST members on park today ridden Wicker Man? Only asking because I’d be intrigued to know how it’s riding after some of the alleged issues it was having last season, in regards to roughness and being slower than usual.

One thing I did notice towards the end of last year is that the ride was doing a lot of “squealing” from the wheels compared to 2018, 2019 and earlier in 2020. Could the roughness and decreased speed towards the end of 2020 have been caused by issues with the wheels?

I’m also quite interested to see how much retracking they’ve done; I know they’ve done the drop after the second wicker man pass-through, as I could see distinctly new-looking rails in that section in a photo in the Stoke Sentinel, but I’m wondering whether anywhere else has been done, such as the apparently very rough stretch after the s-bend drop...
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, have any of the TST members on park today ridden Wicker Man? Only asking because I’d be intrigued to know how it’s riding after some of the alleged issues it was having last season, in regards to roughness and being slower than usual.

One thing I did notice towards the end of last year is that the ride was doing a lot of “squealing” from the wheels compared to 2018, 2019 and earlier in 2020. Could the roughness and decreased speed towards the end of 2020 have been caused by issues with the wheels?

I’m also quite interested to see how much retracking they’ve done; I know they’ve done the drop after the second wicker man pass-through, as I could see distinctly new-looking rails in that section in a photo in the Stoke Sentinel, but I’m wondering whether anywhere else has been done, such as the apparently very rough stretch after the s-bend drop...
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I've seen some videos of wicker man today and it seems to be running much faster and smoother. There's no shaking on that first turn through big bob as there was at the end of last season
 
Ethan said:
I've seen some videos of wicker man today and it seems to be running much faster and smoother. There's no shaking on that first turn through big bob as there was at the end of last season
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Excellent stuff; I look forward to riding for myself on Friday!

I’d be very intrigued to hear some rider reports, to see whether the ride feels any different on-ride to how it looks off-ride. I know that it probably doesn’t, but I’d be really interested to hear, partly out of worry that Wicker Man might not hold up to my memories of it last summer...
 
Matt N said:
If you haven’t already seen; the first notable Wicker Man development for 2021 is that the screens within the wicker man structure itself have made a triumphant return:

Great to see these back!
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Having back theming pieces that should be working is all well and good. Triumphant is not the word I would use though, not even close.

You are paying alot of money for a day out at these places. Having the theming working as per their own marketing that lures you to the park in he first place is one of the most basic requirements that should be met.

I mean, I would struggle to even give them a well done. This is the most basic stuff that should be working full stop.
 
I’m not sure if it’s the light, but a lot of the wood in this photo looks very golden and new compared to what it did at the end of 2020:

Is it new, or is it just the sunset skewing my perceptions?
 
Wicker Man was really pumping out smoke all over the place today; I havent seen it at this level since opening year. The brake run lighting and smoke seems to have been moved about and is much improved.

Only one shoulder of fire remains though.

Hopefully with the screens returning and what not, Towers are actually trying to keep on top of this attraction and not let it fall into the usual disrepair.


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There's been the odd but of wood replaced as happens every year, but yes that's mainly the lighting. The ride was as substantially smoother that, pretty much back to how I remembered it back on my first rides on it.

The new smoke machines are brilliant, they really fill the areas they're in and a massive improvement on last year.
 
I thought Wickerman last year was in a terrible state for such a new ride. The smoke hardly worked (which made the first indoor section look as crappy as Nemesis Inferno's), the screens were taken out of the structure, there was bits of wicker hanging out of the walls by the baggage hold and the break run tunnel was just sitting in darkness.

My first ride was on the first day it opened to the public and I was extremely impressed. The structure was impressive, you could hardly see your hand in front of your face from the station until half way up the lift hill for all the smoke and the brake run tunnel - wow - just sailed through straight to the station with all the effects working and I thought it was an excellent end to a coaster.

Sad that I've never seen it like that since.

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Matt N said:
Excellent stuff; I look forward to riding for myself on Friday!

I’d be very intrigued to hear some rider reports, to see whether the ride feels any different on-ride to how it looks off-ride. I know that it probably doesn’t, but I’d be really interested to hear, partly out of worry that Wicker Man might not hold up to my memories of it last summer...
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You're riding it in three days time ... Look forward to it, as many of your threads have concluded, everything is very much subjective.
 
Matt.GC said:
Sad that I've never seen it like that since.
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I was there that day too, I remember coming off so buzzing and excited, turned around and knew in the back of my head it would never be like that again. Which was kind of funny and tragic. Great day that was.

Think the park trying to do as much as they can to get it back in shape though.
 
Wicker Man vastly improved for 2021. The retrack work has made that sensational S-down element round into the structure smooth again. The new smoke machines that have been installed have made a big difference, too. There are also new lights in the curve to the brake run, too - awesome job.

Although social distancing is seriously affecting capacity, they were pumping out trains rapidly yesterday.
 
@AstroDan If you had to guess, how much of an impact would you say that social distancing is having on capacity?

I’ve actually seen photos of Wicker Man in operation, and it didn’t look as though many rows (maybe 1 or 2 at most) were actually left empty on any of the trains, but I wasn’t on park yesterday to judge.
 
Well it's 1 empty row after each group. Most groups will be 2-4 people so you typically get 4 empty rows per train - sometimes 3 but occasionally more.

This is an improvement on the start of 2020 when all the even rows were closed off - if they had only 2 seats left and the next group in the queue was more than 2 the train went out with at most 10 people on board.
 
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