In an attempt to be more consolidated on this blog, this blog post will be dedicated to Alton Towers, and our recent visit. I think this keeps these posts more interesting, and actually true to the title you clicked on in the first place!
T'is the season! That is, open season for most theme parks. They've actually probably been open since March, but my first visit this year was the 21st May.
In terms of busy-ness, it wasn't bad. Definitely busier than our two previous visits in June and November, and we actually spent some time queuing for rides this time!
The Smiler was open, and it was a little bit strange getting back on it. Yet it ran exactly how it used to, and it was great to get back on the UK's best roller coaster (in my opinion!). They've taken out the blood-curdling screams from the soundtrack, and standardised a lot of their ride soundtracks with 'in the hall of the mountain king' (Alton Towers' theme tune). So, in The Smiler's soundtrack, the tune is sang with ha's. There were a few others too that featured ithotmk in the 'new' soundtracks, and it was kind of nice to hear that tune throughout the park.
Other than that, let's disprove the myths that The Smiler goes slower than it used to, because it's all run on the power of gravity and trim brakes. I forgot how tightly the restraints hugged you though, with all the G forces…
The trains were duelling though and I think on the Saturday, we were running 3 cars.
Other than that, Galactica is now a thing. For those that aren't aware, Air has changed it's name and it's whole vibe, to what they're calling the world's first roller coaster fully dedicated to VR. VR = virtual reality. There are of course, other coasters that have a VR element to them, such as Alpenexpress at Europa-Park, but I'm sure you have to pay extra to get the VR element. Otherwise, it's just a mine train.
You first stick your head into a porthole, and have your picture taken. You then get a printed receipt to take with you on the ride and through to the shop to later scan. This is now your ride photograph, as there are no longer cameras on the ride itself.
On our visit, they were dual-loading, and we were put into the second (lesser used) station, which I've actually never been in before. The new stations look really nice. There are a lot of screens around the place, new signs above the air gates and blue lights everywhere. An explanation of how to fit the headsets is given by EVE, a woman on the big screen. There's other information too about what you're about to experience, and a little bit of backstory to the ride.
Getting on the ride, the headsets are cleaned before you get on. It's then expected that you fit your own, but I struggled slightly and then had it put on me haha. This was the strangest experience, because once you have your headset on, you honestly have no idea what's going on. You're just sitting there, blind and deaf, looking at a fairly small screen listening to the soundtrack. You're rendered totally useless until the ride starts haha, just sitting there totally incapacitated! Exactly the same as Air, you're then whisked 90° faced down and the ride starts.
On the headset, the first few seconds looked like the actual station exit, and then you fly above futuristic scenes, and through various 'worlds', similar to the worlds in the app, if you have it.
I really enjoyed all the new VR content, and although it was a little bit claustrophobic to start with, you soon get used to the depth of the screen, and it feels a lot less in your face after a minute or two.
Overall, a welcome change to Air. It's a great ride to start with, and this adds an extra something. There is of course, the ability to ride without the headset, so you can still see the scenery if you miss Air that much. My one suggestion is that you tighten the headset fairly tightly. There are some inversions that have a fair few G's attached and I lost my headset at one point. If it were tighter it would have been fine.
Here is Imascore's Galactica theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upXwzb4e5p8
I would like to have gone to the Rollercoaster Restaurant too, open since April. It's a very novel idea, yet kind of cool to be able to watch your burger do a loop de loop to your table. The only other one of these is at Europa Park, and I was aware of a new Rollercoaster Restaurant being built when I attended the IAAPA Euro Attractions Show back in October, since someone responsible for F&B talked at the conference.
We managed to avoid the rain most of the day, with just a few light showers throughout the day - mainly whilst we were on Oblivion, and it feels like your eyes are being pierced by needles haha.
At the end of the day, the heavens opened. It turns out when everybody leaves the park at once, it just can't deal with it haha. 5 car park ticket machines are not enough! The monorail queue was up to the turnstiles and so we decided to walk back to the car instead, despite the weather. We got soaked haha. I found where there are holes in my waterproof, and my shoes are rather good at retaining water, too. The paths held up momentarily, but since they're all concrete, drainage is an issue still. Especially since TLC built a lovely new path from the car park to the theme park.
There were actual rivers running down the hill, and crossing them inevitably meant your shoes would be overcome with the water. It was fairly bad rain!
TLC have been good to Alton Towers over the closed season. Their Twitter is here, and they are good at posting pictures of what they've been up to. From new paths to new queue lines, refurbished food outlets to the Nemesis repaint, it's nice to see the behind the scenes.
Okay okay, in terms of SW8, it has been announced, that this will be a GCI wooden roller coaster. Great news for those that like wooden coasters. I'm not a massive fan of them, but it's likely this one will be a hybrid, that is - a steel track, with the rest of it wooden. The plans have been submitted to Staffordshire Council and they are currently awaiting approval to start building in September 2016, for completion December 2017, ready for the 2018 season.
This is an unofficial mock up of what the ride may look like (from TowersTimes), and from all of the speculation, it looks like it may have a launched lift hill, but sadly no inversions. It's unclear what the 'secret weapon' element will be, and whether or not this will follow the SW legacy, containing something considered a 'world first'.
Other issues in the park, Hex, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Nemesis Sub-terror are closed.
Firstly, Hex is simply receiving some 'TLC' ;) It will reopen late this season or for next season.
Charlie is now out of license, and so the Dahl family have clearly decided not to renew the license with Alton Towers for the ride, hence why it's shut. It might become an unbranded dark water ride yet, but it's unlikely.
Nemesis Sub-terror unfortunately does not have a reopening date. It's looking unlikely that this will ever reopen, since it does not take two seasons to refurbish a ride. It's likely closed to save costs, but also whilst they decide what to do with it. I will thankfully never have to endure that terror again! I am a little disappointed it's closed though, as I now can't take people who've never been before on it, expecting nothing… muahhahaa
Not sure when we'll be back, but we will!
Jordanavia :)
T'is the season! That is, open season for most theme parks. They've actually probably been open since March, but my first visit this year was the 21st May.
In terms of busy-ness, it wasn't bad. Definitely busier than our two previous visits in June and November, and we actually spent some time queuing for rides this time!
The Smiler was open, and it was a little bit strange getting back on it. Yet it ran exactly how it used to, and it was great to get back on the UK's best roller coaster (in my opinion!). They've taken out the blood-curdling screams from the soundtrack, and standardised a lot of their ride soundtracks with 'in the hall of the mountain king' (Alton Towers' theme tune). So, in The Smiler's soundtrack, the tune is sang with ha's. There were a few others too that featured ithotmk in the 'new' soundtracks, and it was kind of nice to hear that tune throughout the park.
Other than that, let's disprove the myths that The Smiler goes slower than it used to, because it's all run on the power of gravity and trim brakes. I forgot how tightly the restraints hugged you though, with all the G forces…
The trains were duelling though and I think on the Saturday, we were running 3 cars.
Other than that, Galactica is now a thing. For those that aren't aware, Air has changed it's name and it's whole vibe, to what they're calling the world's first roller coaster fully dedicated to VR. VR = virtual reality. There are of course, other coasters that have a VR element to them, such as Alpenexpress at Europa-Park, but I'm sure you have to pay extra to get the VR element. Otherwise, it's just a mine train.
You first stick your head into a porthole, and have your picture taken. You then get a printed receipt to take with you on the ride and through to the shop to later scan. This is now your ride photograph, as there are no longer cameras on the ride itself.
On our visit, they were dual-loading, and we were put into the second (lesser used) station, which I've actually never been in before. The new stations look really nice. There are a lot of screens around the place, new signs above the air gates and blue lights everywhere. An explanation of how to fit the headsets is given by EVE, a woman on the big screen. There's other information too about what you're about to experience, and a little bit of backstory to the ride.
Getting on the ride, the headsets are cleaned before you get on. It's then expected that you fit your own, but I struggled slightly and then had it put on me haha. This was the strangest experience, because once you have your headset on, you honestly have no idea what's going on. You're just sitting there, blind and deaf, looking at a fairly small screen listening to the soundtrack. You're rendered totally useless until the ride starts haha, just sitting there totally incapacitated! Exactly the same as Air, you're then whisked 90° faced down and the ride starts.
On the headset, the first few seconds looked like the actual station exit, and then you fly above futuristic scenes, and through various 'worlds', similar to the worlds in the app, if you have it.
I really enjoyed all the new VR content, and although it was a little bit claustrophobic to start with, you soon get used to the depth of the screen, and it feels a lot less in your face after a minute or two.
Overall, a welcome change to Air. It's a great ride to start with, and this adds an extra something. There is of course, the ability to ride without the headset, so you can still see the scenery if you miss Air that much. My one suggestion is that you tighten the headset fairly tightly. There are some inversions that have a fair few G's attached and I lost my headset at one point. If it were tighter it would have been fine.
Here is Imascore's Galactica theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upXwzb4e5p8
I would like to have gone to the Rollercoaster Restaurant too, open since April. It's a very novel idea, yet kind of cool to be able to watch your burger do a loop de loop to your table. The only other one of these is at Europa Park, and I was aware of a new Rollercoaster Restaurant being built when I attended the IAAPA Euro Attractions Show back in October, since someone responsible for F&B talked at the conference.
We managed to avoid the rain most of the day, with just a few light showers throughout the day - mainly whilst we were on Oblivion, and it feels like your eyes are being pierced by needles haha.
At the end of the day, the heavens opened. It turns out when everybody leaves the park at once, it just can't deal with it haha. 5 car park ticket machines are not enough! The monorail queue was up to the turnstiles and so we decided to walk back to the car instead, despite the weather. We got soaked haha. I found where there are holes in my waterproof, and my shoes are rather good at retaining water, too. The paths held up momentarily, but since they're all concrete, drainage is an issue still. Especially since TLC built a lovely new path from the car park to the theme park.
There were actual rivers running down the hill, and crossing them inevitably meant your shoes would be overcome with the water. It was fairly bad rain!
TLC have been good to Alton Towers over the closed season. Their Twitter is here, and they are good at posting pictures of what they've been up to. From new paths to new queue lines, refurbished food outlets to the Nemesis repaint, it's nice to see the behind the scenes.
Okay okay, in terms of SW8, it has been announced, that this will be a GCI wooden roller coaster. Great news for those that like wooden coasters. I'm not a massive fan of them, but it's likely this one will be a hybrid, that is - a steel track, with the rest of it wooden. The plans have been submitted to Staffordshire Council and they are currently awaiting approval to start building in September 2016, for completion December 2017, ready for the 2018 season.
This is an unofficial mock up of what the ride may look like (from TowersTimes), and from all of the speculation, it looks like it may have a launched lift hill, but sadly no inversions. It's unclear what the 'secret weapon' element will be, and whether or not this will follow the SW legacy, containing something considered a 'world first'.
Other issues in the park, Hex, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Nemesis Sub-terror are closed.
Firstly, Hex is simply receiving some 'TLC' ;) It will reopen late this season or for next season.
Charlie is now out of license, and so the Dahl family have clearly decided not to renew the license with Alton Towers for the ride, hence why it's shut. It might become an unbranded dark water ride yet, but it's unlikely.
Nemesis Sub-terror unfortunately does not have a reopening date. It's looking unlikely that this will ever reopen, since it does not take two seasons to refurbish a ride. It's likely closed to save costs, but also whilst they decide what to do with it. I will thankfully never have to endure that terror again! I am a little disappointed it's closed though, as I now can't take people who've never been before on it, expecting nothing… muahhahaa
Not sure when we'll be back, but we will!
Jordanavia :)
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