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Wicker Man - General Discussion - Part Two

skyscraper said:
Could there be an isue with the sensors?
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Probably, I dunno why though, it should be a simple open/close switch on the restraint that as soon as it hits the first ratchet it should register as closed, that's why you have someone double check its ratcheted correctly, every person is different size so you can't have a variable potentiometer on the restraint because it'll never read the same value twice.

I wondered if the switches were getting wet, I was soaked when I got off the ride from all that fake smoke they pump out.
 
Log Flume's Dennis said:
Long time lurker, first time poster!

Absolutely gutted. Been following the construction of WM ever since the fulme was removed, and finally got to the park today. Arrived at the plaza shortly before 8 and was right at the front. Sat patiently for well over and hour, and when they finally let me in, I fell over and banged my head (quite hard) on the Coca Cola kiosk at the top of towers street. I didn't know where I was. I just sort of overbalanced and fell sideways into it. a member of staff walked me to medical and they kept me in there while everyone else ran to the WM queue. Then to make things worse they recommended I didn't go on any rides because I felt nauseous and I might have concussion.

Absolutely gutted, but am grateful to the alton towers staff because who know what might have happened if nobody had found me.

I did have a sneaky go on Duel, and WM looks incredible. Next time I'll will have to be more careful.
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Dennis, that sounds awful! Hope you're feeling better, and I'm glad you got on Duel in the end, even if it's not Wicker Man! Hope you get to ride soon! It will be worth the wait when you do.
 
Log Flume's Dennis said:
Long time lurker, first time poster!

Absolutely gutted. Been following the construction of WM ever since the fulme was removed, and finally got to the park today. Arrived at the plaza shortly before 8 and was right at the front. Sat patiently for well over and hour, and when they finally let me in, I fell over and banged my head (quite hard) on the Coca Cola kiosk at the top of towers street. I didn't know where I was. I just sort of overbalanced and fell sideways into it. a member of staff walked me to medical and they kept me in there while everyone else ran to the WM queue. Then to make things worse they recommended I didn't go on any rides because I felt nauseous and I might have concussion.

Absolutely gutted, but am grateful to the alton towers staff because who know what might have happened if nobody had found me.

I did have a sneaky go on Duel, and WM looks incredible. Next time I'll will have to be more careful.
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Gosh, hope you're ok! :)
Better to be safe than sorry though.
 
Just got back home from a mixed day for Wickerman. With it stopping at least twice during the day, we left it until last. Despite the weather by that point of the day and the odd bit of graffiti, the queueline was a welcome change from the cattlepens elsewhere, with some great views of various points of the ride. The pre-show was great, the station equally so and at 6pm or so we were finally on board...only for it to stop within 3-4 feet of the top of the lift hill. 10 minutes passed and suddenly there was life again. Whether we just got lucky with the time of day, the weather or both, cue a ride that seemed to be only beaten in regards to speed by Rita and the flat turn was only a minor blip as it soon found that speed again. Genuinely blown away by the whole thing.

Sorry Nemmie, you may have been there for the last 18 years, but (at least until I ride it again and it isn't as good as that was) I have a new number 1 ride at Alton Towers.
 
delta79 said:
I did have only one favourite ride at alton. Now i have a favourite inverting, Nemesis. And favourite non inverting, Wickerman.

Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk
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Same here, but wickerman honestly comes very close to being best overall.

Sent from my Swift 2 X using Tapatalk
 
Moley said:
Just got back home from a mixed day for Wickerman. With it stopping at least twice during the day, we left it until last. Despite the weather by that point of the day and the odd bit of graffiti, the queueline was a welcome change from the cattlepens elsewhere, with some great views of various points of the ride. The pre-show was great, the station equally so and at 6pm or so we were finally on board...only for it to stop within 3-4 feet of the top of the lift hill. 10 minutes passed and suddenly there was life again. Whether we just got lucky with the time of day, the weather or both, cue a ride that seemed to be only beaten in regards to speed by Rita and the flat turn was only a minor blip as it soon found that speed again. Genuinely blown away by the whole thing.

Sorry Nemmie, you may have been there for the last 18 years, but (at least until I ride it again and it isn't as good as that was) I have a new number 1 ride at Alton Towers.
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I respect your opinion pal, and I havn't heard a bad review of WickerMan yet (apart from the operational issues which I have also moaned about myself). It looks great doesn't it? The pre-show is just about long enough to excite people without making them hang around too long. The ride is a pure bit of pleasure. I always have to add the caveat that it's not as long as some of us would have hoped, but they've done very well with what they were working with. No doubt. Very enjoyable. Not sure about beating Nemesis for me personally. I prefer it to The Smiler though maybe, just because the Smiler almost breaks my neck at a couple of points.
 
BarryZola said:
I respect your opinion pal, and I havn't heard a bad review of WickerMan yet (apart from the operational issues which I have also moaned about myself). It looks great doesn't it? The pre-show is just about long enough to excite people without making them hang around too long. The ride is a pure bit of pleasure. I always have to add the caveat that it's not as long as some of us would have hoped, but they've done very well with what they were working with. No doubt. Very enjoyable. Not sure about beating Nemesis for me personally. I prefer it to The Smiler though maybe, just because the Smiler almost breaks my neck at a couple of points.
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I added the little caveat for the same reason really, I'd heard about it being a solid addition to the line-up but that knocked my socks off. Definitely not ruling out the possibility that all the stars happened to align as we got into the queue and it falling back to 2nd place, as Nemesis is still a spectacularly joyous way of spending 2 minutes.
 
BarryZola said:
I respect your opinion pal, and I havn't heard a bad review of WickerMan yet (apart from the operational issues which I have also moaned about myself).
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If you want a bad review of Wicker Man (well, mostly the coaster itself), I direct you to this link: http://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/wicker-moan.42408/

Speaking of which, I have actually heard quite a few people moan about Wicker Man now. None on this forum, but quite a few elsewhere on the internet. Some of the gripes I've heard include:
  • Overall experience is not "world class" as marketed.
  • The wicker man structure is much smaller than the marketing implied.
  • Coaster is boring and lacks airtime.
  • Screens inside the wicker man structure are too obvious.
  • There is no sensation of heat as you pass through the structure.
  • The shed at the end is anticlimactic and needs to be grander.
  • Theme is too dark for scale of coaster.
  • Soundtrack "sounds like Ralph Wiggum with a flute up his nose".
  • Queue is a "prison of wooden fences and poor Scottish accents".
  • The overall experience (everything, including pre show, theming and atmosphere as well as coaster) offered by Heidi the Ride at Plopsa is better. To be fair, I might have misinterpreted this one.
To be fair, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I may well have misinterpreted some of these. I just thought you might be interested to hear some of people's gripes with Wicker Man.
 
Some of those complains seem to be more nitpicky than anything. Wicker Man structure smaller than advertised? What did they expect, The Statue of Liberty?

The Coaster is anything but boring. Even so called "boring corner" proved to be very enjoyable.

Either way, all the points seem to be very silly moaning.
 
Matt N said:
If you want a bad review of Wicker Man (well, mostly the coaster itself), I direct you to this link: http://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/wicker-moan.42408/

Speaking of which, I have actually heard quite a few people moan about Wicker Man now. None on this forum, but quite a few elsewhere on the internet. Some of the gripes I've heard include:
  • Overall experience is not "world class" as marketed.
  • The wicker man structure is much smaller than the marketing implied.
  • Coaster is boring and lacks airtime.
  • Screens inside the wicker man structure are too obvious.
  • There is no sensation of heat as you pass through the structure.
  • The shed at the end is anticlimactic and needs to be grander.
  • Theme is too dark for scale of coaster.
  • Soundtrack "sounds like Ralph Wiggum with a flute up his nose".
  • Queue is a "prison of wooden fences and poor Scottish accents".
  • The overall experience (everything, including pre show, theming and atmosphere as well as coaster) offered by Heidi the Ride at Plopsa is better. To be fair, I might have misinterpreted this one.
To be fair, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I may well have misinterpreted some of these. I just thought you might be interested to hear some of people's gripes with Wicker Man.
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I always found coasterforce forums to be full of folk who tend to pull the negative out of most reviews but some of those points are valid and I do think a few folk have got a bit of the “new coaster starry eyed” going on.

Points I agree on:

The coaster is good but does lack airtime (Though GCI’s are rarely airtime machines).

Screens are a bit obvious.

Shed is anticlimactic.

Soundtrack is a bit meh.

Things I disagree on:

Wickerman is as big as I expected and if an enthusiast is taken in by marketing images then they are incredibly naive, general public then maybe.

Queue is a prison of wooden fences is bonkers compared to some horrific queues in the country.

Heat through the wickerman would be good but at the speed you are going it would have to be a carbon guzzling monster for you to notice.
 
I see a lot of nitpicking. A few worthwhile points to be sure, especially about the operations and if the coaster is just not your thing, then that's fair. But the stuff about the theme and queue being poor, I don't get. Interested to hear what they thought of the likes of Rita or The Smiler.

It'll be interesting to see reviews once the new ride smell has worn off.
 
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