Purplepills

Thanks for taking the time to do this! Its great to have a such a good source to see which coasters are considered the best

This is true, some years ago my brother had friends visiting from when he did a year of college in the US...they rented a car, and returned it after 10 minutes of trying to get out of Heathrow. Its not the nicest place to drive when you live here, let alone in a foreign country! Thorpe is a much easier option, so much transport, dedicated buses every 15 or 20 minutes from Staines station...but if you can leave London 2pm(ish) and get to Alton for 8pm and stay overnight before going in this is what I would suggest doing. In a single day it is a lot! Both parks are good but for me if it was one or the other I'd choose AT.

In addition to the posts above you did mention an overnight stay, which would be in a B&B - this is what we always have done, we live a 4.5 hour car journey away and its much nicer to not have that at the start of your day. There is a B&B right outside Alton Towers gates called the Trough Ivy House, I've stayed there a couple of times, cosy but nice and its closer to the turnstiles than the car park is! There is another 5 minutes walk down the road called the Chained Oak which we have also used twice, again very nice. Its a short walk up the hill but its a bit of a busy road with no pavement/sidewalk. I always see people doing it and its probably fine just something to bear in mind. At a quick glance here are some bus times from Uttoxeter station, if you scroll down from the 5th timetable onwards there seem to be buses every couple of hours. I can't tell you how accurate this information is, although it was only posted a year ago. There may be a better timetable somewhere but this should work as a guide Bus times Uttoxeter station to AT

Thanks for taking the time to post neil, its good to get so much detail on it and a few photos

Theyre now saying this:

Good to hear its opened and people are going on it. Proves the GP are confident the ride is still safe! I dont really think you can fault the parks handling of the whole thing start to (almost) finish - I haven't seen any announcements, advertisments etc specifically about the Smiler opening, other than replies to tweets. Avoids a lot of criticism from the media about what they should and shouldn't do, by not doing anything at all other than promoting Galactica and general park re-opening.

^Possibly just to appease the public with all the stuff thats been removed this season? If the sign is there they at least know the flume has been removed for a reason, as opposed to the other stuff which is just shut or gone completely.

That was my first thought given the massive area but the height restriction. Not really sure though. On what sort of timescale are the planning applications submitted to the council if they were going to aim to open it next year? Is it a bit late already for someone not to have spotted them?

^Interesting poster, although as you say a lot can change in 5 years so the Switzerland reference may well be outdated, but still seems as if it was planned a long time ago! I'd love it to be something like an RMC woodie. Either way I hope it is a new coaster, and a decent sized one that uses much of the area the Flume currently uses, given that the area looks big enough to just about take Nemesis and Galactica combined. If only Alton didn't have the height restriction we could dream BIG

I thought this yesterday! I'm not going to be able to make it there this year but I'd be more looking forward to seeing Nemesis looking awesome than some VR which may or may not be any good. Infact half the time I keep forgetting they've even done it. Is it still the case they haven't repainted the Galactica track then? Its seems really weird if they haven't given the effort they seem to be putting into everything else, you'd think if a ride was being completely rebranded they would TLC that before a lot of the other things. Although maybe they have and I've not been paying attention....

Looks great! Best fake rust I've ever seen, even the way its 'dripping' down the lower rail. I know its meant to be a beast but I did like the rusty look for the ride...and this is perfect IMO. Awesome

The BBC report about the prosecution says: The protocols weren't followed, as you might expect given whats happened. It seems in cases like this that regardless of the actions of their employees, Merlin are ultimately responsible for the safety of the guests and thats why they're being prosecuted. I didn't really like the wording (assuming its accurate) 'The theme park said staff misunderstood a shutdown message and wrongly restarted the ride.'. What sort of shutdown messages would they get in the operating booth? It just seems to deflect from the fact they must have not bothered checking (looking) why the ride had stopped in the first place, and just restarted it assuming it was an error. I think there's a difference between 'misunderstanding a shutdown message' and not properly double checking why the ride has stopped. Are the individuals involved likely to face criminal charges of any sort?

Your mind works in the same way as me, I asked and got this reply: They must be getting fed up of people like us asking. Possibly, I bet they're more fed up of being asked when The Smiler will open! I look every now and then just incase and see 3 or 4 replies near the top saying that they don't know yet. I wonder if they'll just open it quietly on opening day and not really say anything. No idea if they're allowed to open it yet even.

So I figured I would just ask them. I did tweet the TLC account last week but got no response. Its not conclusive but suggests the white isn't the final colour..

Agreed, that track isn't being 'rusted up', it's the original track colour on the spine and it looks like they've slapped a bit of red primer on parts of it. Plus the rails look grey in areas. From their earlier tweets I believe they shotblasted some of the track back to steel, so maybe thats what we're seeing. I think the photo being referred to might be BEFORE the white was put on? Its the same red primer look on the joints that you can see on the supports in the image below: