Morgan

It also highlights that BPB aren't locking down and shutting off at least some of their rides at night. The fact they were able to even switch it on is a little alarming. I know Blue Flyer is a fairly low-tech ride, with it's manual braking system, but you would've hoped that the power and the lift controls were able to be locked off to prevent anything like this happening. If one of these kids had have been injured or even killed it would've been a very bad situation for BPB, regardless of whether or not the kid's should've been there or not.

I'm hoping they'll go with the pirate theme, seeming as the entrance is within Mutiny Bay, but the Flume sat there with bathtubs floating around for years, so anything could happen. A break from the evil/sinister theme that Merlin seem to be hung up on would be good. The plans show possible theming around the track, so having some sort of shipwreck that the coaster speeds through could provide some good head-chopper moments.

Not surprising after The Smiler incident, Towers really was a ghost town for the rest of 2015, and I don't think it'll properly recover for a while, it definitely was not bust at all last Saturday. I'm a little surprised both Legoland and Chessington saw an increase in attendance, I thought the attendance slump would have affected all parks in the UK.

Well, with RnRC closed and Lights Motor Action gone forever, one could argue that the Studios is a one hour park. Ride Crush, think about RC Racer, ignore the coma-inducing shows. Park's done. Lights Motors Action is still open in Paris, as far as I'm aware there aren't currently any plans to close it are there? With regards to the rest of the studios, if you are in a hurry, then you could do ToT, Ratatouille and Crush (it's best to get to Crush as soon as it opens as it always gets a long wait, and doesn't always open the single rider line. Disneyland Park the must-do are Phantom Manor, Pirates & Space Mountain, so if you are just doing the 'highlights' then I guess it is possible to do both parks, but you'll be missing out on a lot, and there is also Disney Dreams, which is fantastic, but that is at closing time, which is currently 11pm.

It amazes me how a park like Paultons can continually get it right with their investments. Peppa Pig World put them on the map, with one of the best kid's areas I've seen, they've invested a lot in the park entrance area which has elevated it from a cheaper looking regional park into an impressive sleek and modern area, and now Lost Kingdom which looks amazing, which has theming that puts anything Merlin have done to shame. If they continue on this trajectory they will definitely become a major player in the UK (more so than they are already).

Yes, but they are more like arm rests not actual handles.

From what I've heard they have installed numerous sensors on the trains themselves, so I imagine these will be used to make sure the footage syncs with the movement of the coaster for each row.

I'll echo what the others have said, Thorpe is notoriously busy on Fright Nights and definitely reaches capacity regularly on the weekends, so if you can afford it, fastrack is definitely the way to go. The mazes can be very good for UK theme park standard, but I know from reports of last years event that it was very hit and miss.

If you book more than 5 days in advance it is a lot cheaper, more like 45€ depending on the exchange rate. If its your only chance to visit, then it would be worth it. While its not the best year for Towers with the ride closures its still worth a visit, as it is a unique park and the rides that are open are still great. Having said this if you'll have the chance to visit in a year or two, then maybe hold off until they've finished off their renovation plans and hopefully have installed something new.

It's already fairly clear what happened in the incident... 1. There was a regular breakdown, which prompted empty cars to be cycled through once it was rectified. 2. Riders were loaded into the car and dispatched. 3. The last empty car (Car A) stalled in the batwing. 4. The system stopped the following car filled with riders (Car B), on the first lift hill as the stalled Car A hadn't cleared the next block. 5. The staff overrode the safety system and restarted the system, Car B on the first lift was dispatched into the next block. 6. Car B collided with Car A in the batwing. Obviously step 5 is where we don't know exactly what happened and what the safety system warning actually said to prompt the ride staff/maintenance staff to misunderstand it and override the system, but I imagine we probably won't find out the actual details of what actually happened here. Regardless of what did happen Merlin is ultimately responsible as the systems were not in place to prevent this 'human error' from happening, hence why they have added visual verification points around the ride now, that need to be activated by staff members before the ride can be restarted. (I presume this might be added to all multi-car coasters in the future, at least in Merlin parks I guess).

I believe this Health & Safety prosecution will just result in a fine to Merlin, which looking at the type of prosecution can be an unlimited amount. There is a possibility of imprisonment in this type of prosecution, but as the HSE has stated they are prosecuting Merlin Attractions Operations Ltd, I don't see this happening, if they had stated they would be prosecuting the individuals who went against the operating guidelines as well, then possibly. Imprisonment can be either a maximum of 6 months or two years depending if the trial takes place in a Magistrates or Crown Court. This is obviously entirely separate to the cases that the individual victims will be bringing against Merlin, although I imagine these will all be settled out of court, judging on how Merlin have been handling this side of things (well at least how they have appeared to be handling things in the press) since the accident, offering support to the victims.

The Frozen Sing-a-Long show was great in my opinion, it fit the theatre really well and the production was really well done. We saw it twice, and on our first time they had technical issues with the giant screen, as it wouldn't lift up out of the way for the finale, so Elsa's entrance was somewhat muted, but the second time around everything worked well and Elsa's reveal on her 'mountain' was quite impressive, I imagine that the show will return for the summer season for the foreseeable future. It's good to see they are continuing to use the venue though after it's sat unused for quite a bit.

DLP as it is currently is a great experience in terms of service and cast member friendliness. I think in the past they have had issues, I think I've said before the difference between our trip in 2011 and our trip last year was night and day. The cast members are friendly, and went out of their way to strike up a conversation with you, which wasn't the case in 2011 where the majority we saw, were generally just getting on with their job and not adding that 'Disney magic'.

Great trip report. It's definitely brought back memories of our Disney trip last year. Thanks for sharing.

That's more down to shoddy and rushed construction of it, it was never going to stand up against the weather and general wear and tear.

I think you were lucky not to have had to wait longer for Autopia, we never saw it under an hour earlier in the year. I took my eldest on after waiting 20 mins for it to open at the end of the extra magic hour in the morning, and when we got off the queue was completely full. It's a fun attraction if you don't have to wait long for it, but I've never understood people waiting over an hour for it.

I'm disappointed we didn't eat at Hunter's Grill now. We originally were booked for dinner there on our last night, but after our fairly lack lustre buffet at the Cheyenne we swapped our reservation at Hunters for a lunch at the Blue Lagoon. We'll definitely have to put it on our list for next time. Really loving your trip report.

That buffet looks much better than the one we had at the Cheyenne, which was a bit on the poor side. I'd definitely recommend the Plus dining plan though, the difference in the amount of places you can eat is huge. We ate at Chuck Wagon (Cheyenne buffet), Bistrot Chez Remy, Café Mickey & Blue Lagoon, and we thought the value with the dining plan was good and the menu choices were fairly varied. The only poor thing with the dining plan is the tea-time treat in my opinion, our issue was that we had our main meal at lunch time, so by the time we were getting hungry we either missed the time window to collect them or we found ourselves waiting in a huge line in the limited places you could get them. Also the choices were a bit limited (either a donut or ice cream bar), we ended up with quite a few left on our last day, so we left with a bag full of bottled water and donuts.

You didn't have the best luck with Ratatouille did you? In June I think I only saw it go down once for a short while. Although we only got on it once, as we avoided it when it had lengthy queues because our youngest wouldn't have been fun to entertain during the wait. It was definitely a great ride, and I loved that the whole family could go on it, it was slightly weird taking our just under 1 year old daughter on it, but she seemed to enjoy it even without the 3D glasses. I have to echo your comments on Bistro Chez Remy, we ate there and it was by far our favourite meal of our trip. We also sat next to the unload station of the ride, which was cool watching the rats park up in unison. The only downside to it is that it's a bit loud in there, with it being mostly one large room, I think it could've benefited with being divided into smaller sections.

It's good that the findings are officially out in the open now. What has surprised me a little is the amount of people I've seen blaming Alton Towers for using this as a 'scapegoat' exercise, trying to deflect the blame onto the staff involved. If somebody goes against set safety protocols, who else can be to blame? Yes the ride technical safety systems were obviously not full proof in that the accident did happen, but if the protocols had been followed correctly it would not have. It's an awful incident, but at least Alton Towers/Merlin have always taken full responsibility for it throughout, something which doesn't generally happen until the outcome of an investigation. Hopefully now this is out in the open, the park can try to get back to normal, although if the recent rumours are true I think it might be a long time until that happens. With regards to the rumoured closures, it would seem weird to me for them to do this, at a time when they should be re-building confidence, they should be throwing money at the problem to reinvigorate the park and enticing those visitors that have stayed away since the incident. Yes profit margin-wise it won't be good, especially on top of the losses already reported, but in this case I think they need to take the hit as they are in danger of losing their footing in the UK market, if they continue as they are. I guess realistically though we won't be able to tell the full extent of the problems until The Smiler is back open, perhaps the public will start returning once it is back up an running and people are riding it again.

Regarding the service and friendliness of the cast members across the resort, I can definitely say that it has vastly improved. We visited in 2012 and the cast members were generally unwelcoming, they weren't rude, but they definitely weren't cheerful and talkative and basically interacted with you on a minimal level. Our visit in June this year was completely different, every member of staff we met was happy and generally went out of their way to make you feel welcome. The only slight area of improvement that is needed is in the counter service restaurants, where generally service was a bit slow and some of the staff didn't seem in too much of a hurry. If it wasn't for all the rehabs, we would've definitely been going back next year, but we'll be waiting for the scheduled closures to clear up before making our return.

On a lighter note... Scarefest at Alton Towers this year is the best it's been for quite a while in my opinion. They are back up to having 3 mazes (although they are all chargeable now, the days of a free maze included in admission are long gone), and the scare zones are better than before. Mini review below containing some mild spoilers. Starting with the scare zones, Nox Infurnus (in the Rita Tunnel) & Dark Apocalypse (Between Nemesis & Sub-Terra). In the past Towers have put on fairly elaborate scare zones with lots of themeing, which were completely separate from regular guest areas. The problem with these were (in my opinion), they never really had that much of an atmosphere, and as they controlled the flow of guests going through them, you could always see the actors coming and it never really produced that many scares. Now the two scare zones are in relatively high traffic areas, removing most of the choice of whether to go through them or not. It is possible to avoid them, but it does mean taking a bit of a detour. The result of this change is a great atmosphere as the actors have free reign to chase people about and pull off quite a lot of scares as lots of people walk through the area. The only downside is, there is little or no themeing present, but that is a trade off that I think works. The 3 mazes are Terror of the Towers (the only returning maze), Sub Species - The End Games & The Haunting of Molly Crowe. Terror of the Towers has been shifted within The Towers this year, and now partially occupies an area the was previously used for The Sanctuary maze for the past two years. The theme is still the same, but the new route and mixed up scenes have given this maze a new lease of life, as it was getting stale in it's old guise. Sub Species is a new maze free flow maze (you are free to explore and don't go through in a line), which sees you on the run in the sewers while a bunch of subterranean inhabitants bet on who will survive. This is a great maze, as straight away some of the group are snatched from the group and sent off on their own. There's multiple routes and you find yourself split off from the group fairly often. It's also quite varied with sections in complete darkness, tunnels to crawl through and some great themeing throughout. The final maze The Haunting of Molly Crowe is a hooded maze, so for the majority of the experience you walk through with a hood over your head guided by a rope. Having done another hooded maze the night before at Xtreme Scream Park, which was a bit lacklustre, I was expecting this to be a bit of a let down, but in the end it was my favourite maze of the night. This is obviously a very sensory based experience, as the hoods block out almost everything visually, with just the odd thing being visable every so often. The theme of the maze is a group of mediums are investigating the ghost of Molly Crowe, when you go through the maze, you basically go through the life of Molly Crowe, which turns out to be fairly tragic tale, as you hear the screams of a baby, through to a abusive childhood and then death, which is simulated really well through what is really the first visble light effects and heat in the maze. Then after the death you get to the scary side, with glances of a demonic Molly. The finale which you remove your hood for, is by far the best set piece I've seen in a scare maze, and pulled off to great effect. It's a really great experience from start to finish and excels in story telling. If you have the chance to get to Scarefest, it's definitely worth it this year. Here's a few photos from the event, if you want to see more and some further reviews of the event, take a look at the coverage we did at live.towersnerd.com Towers Street Themeing Molly Crowe Poster Alton Ancestors Flash Mob Nox Infurnus Scare Zone Terror of the Towers Terror of the Towers Queue Sub Species - The End Games

I can't imagine that the UAE Hulk track would've been manufactured, they hardly did any work on the park before it was cancelled, so surely would've been a way off even thinking of installing any track. So to have the track already manufactured, it would've meant storing it for quite a while, which doesn't make much sense.

Great report so far. I've always wanted to stay at the Sequoia Lodge, I've done a night at Newport Bay many years ago and we did 4 nights at Cheyenne earlier this year, but hopefully we'll get to stay at Sequoia for our next visit, budget permitting. Quick question, does Sequoia Lodge have air-con? I was a little surprised to find that Cheyenne didn't, and it made for some hot nights when we were there in June. It didn't help that we had to close the window though, as there were various cheerleader squads hanging around the river outside making noise until late.

Alton Towers have apparently said that the investigation is still on-going, and that they do not expect The Smiler to open for the foreseeable future while it continues, despite rumours that they were preparing it to reopen before Scarefest starts in October.