andyuk200523

Twister Trains in sexy Red!!!! From Gröna Lunds Facebook Page

Hi Loefet, I will be taking my first trip to Liseberg in June with the ECC, just a few questions for the management 1) Is there a reason why Atmosfear was not planned to Rotate on the way up? 2) Are there plans to remove one of the S&S Drop towers due to there now being 3 tower attractions in the park? 3) What is the official Height of the drop on Atmosfear (ie. from the maximum height of the ride car to the station) as all of the figures which have appeared online appear to be above sea level... Hopefully these can get asked, been wondering them for a while! Thanks!

You'll find that bear at every Merlin attraction across the globe.....

Speechless, that was absolutely amazing!!!!!!

Shame on you Heide....this is very Lame and unexpected! So now it looks like your completely missing the Kraken thus removing your complete Ad campaign of being eaten up by the Kraken and spat out?!

Alton (same goes for Thorpe) work out their opening hours and whether it is a Peak or Non Peak day with the amount of Presold tickets online, so if it is a 5:30 closing, it will be a very quiet day, 6pm closing, slightly busier, 7pm, busy day etc.... Spinball had a Single rider queue last year, not sure about this year, although the signage looked very permanent, it does work pretty well too from what I have heard, you could possibly do this before you head over to Nemesis/Etc. I have never queued for it It all depends if you don't mind doing the park sort of back to front blah blah, if you aren't bothered about going back and forth across the park, I would leave Hex until after the coasters, there will not be a big queue for it at any time of the day, so head over to Forbidden Valley and get Air in quickly after ERT & Th13teen, then go to Air before Nemesis. Have a great time!

Yay, another credit to add to my list in June hope it is open by then!

Nemesis Queue never gets beyone 20-30 minutes on a weekday (in my experience (counting well over 400 rides on Nemesis now ) Air Queue still is terrible, I tried out Single Rider last year on Air and it didn't make the slightest of differences, I wonder if the staff just didn't know how to operate it! Hex on the other hand, I have never watched the in queue video since probably 2005.....queue is pretty much walk straight into Pre-Show 1 normally! So I would skip Hex for ERT, anytime of the day would be good. I would at least try and get some Rita launches in during ERT, then you are nice and close to jump in the queue for Th13teen when it opens, so personally would still do X-Sector/Dark Forest during ERT then you can spend the day enjoying Forbidden Valley/Katanga areas. As for Rain.....I have ridden Oblivion in a Hail Storm, so their Rain policy is quite heavily better than in the US. If the park is closing at 5:30, I would suggest you would be looking at an attendance of up to 8,000 which is a dead day for Alton, have a great time! Glad to see another ECC member on here, are you going on the Sweden Trip, I can't wait for it! 1st June!!!

It's the trains. If a Eurofighter such as Speed had the three row trains, the quick drop-off over the narrow crest would have unbearable forces for riders in the very back. It's the same reason why Fahrenheit has an even wider crest than the three-row Eurofighters - itself having six rows of seats to keep the forces in check for. Ahh, thanks for clearing that up, didn't realise that DDD was going to have longer trains than usual......(will teach me to pay attention to the whole thread and not just the odd page here and there!)

I wonder why Gerstlauer have changed the profile for the lift/first drop? Especially when you compare the Lift tower to the UK Eurofighters, Maybe they are trying to sort out the "Jolt" that sometimes happens at the bottom of the first drops (although in all fairness I have only ever experienced this on Saw, others have mentioned it can happen on Speed sometimes)

Have been wanting to ride AirWolf since I was into Amusement Rides........

I am pretty sure the Raptor restraints are just an update to the flyer restraints, so therefore Vekoma may have "borrowed" the idea from B&M... Picture supplied from RCDB.com

B&M could Team up with Premier again and use Tyres......almost constant reliability with those, I never hear of Hulk having issues with its launch!!! I would guess at a Launched Wingrider (either with or without rotating seats) Or maybe Alton would call it a WrathRider

Have they confirmed what the rides will be for the ERT sessions this year? I'll either be buying a ticket online or a Merlin season pass. (I'm probably hitting Thorpe, Legoland and the Eye, so it might be worth it to ge the pass and add Sea Life, Tussauds and the Dungeon, as well.) So, either way, I should be able to make the ERT session. Also, are the bus times reliable from the Stoke-on-Trent railway station? If it runs on time, I should be at Alton at 9:02. I'd take the earlier bus, but it's over an hour earlier, and I'll probably be taking an early train from London (unless I decide to brave driving on the other side of the road in the UK or to take the train the night before.) So, if it's fairly reliable, I can skip a few minutes of ERT, if I'll still get in in time to get some rides in before the rest of the public. Annoyingly, the ERT rides are scattered all over the park. (You'd think it would be easier for the park to have all the open rides in the same area!) By the way, I'll most likely be going on July 12. For some strange reason, they close earlier than normal at 5:30 that day, and several days in early July. Is there a buyout or something on that day? Also, does Alton keep the queues open until closing time? I'll have to plan which train to take home. And if I can get into a queue a bit before closing, that might keep me there later than expected, so I should allow for that if I buy my train ticket in advance. Although it may suck, I would plan on getting the earlier bus/train, if Alton is suddenly going to be busy that day you will find the Bus will probably end up being late as the traffic leading up to the park is atrocious when the park is busy. Normally Alton keep the queues open until about 5 minutes before closing, it all depends on the length of queue, I have seen them close a 1 hour queue just before closing, but I have seen them close a 30 minute queue 30 minutes before closing, I think it depends on the crew that are working that day. Last year, Spinball was in ERT, so was Rita, when I went last year we hit up Spinball first then headed to Rita to get a few rides in, these tend to be the lowest throughput rides, so I would probably get them done a few times in ERT, head over to Forbidden Valley for opening, get Air first, then do a few runs on Nemesis, then head back across to X-Sector to catch Oblivion, it never seems to get a queue longer than about 45 minutes on a really busy day now, so on an average day, the queue shouldn't be worse than 15/20 minutes......

Damn Right!!! Seriously though, can you imagine a similar layout to Nemesis (not the same but similar idea) buried into Rock, in a Wingrider..........That would be unreal!!!!!! It would probably beat Nemesis for once!!!!! If Alton are reading this.........listen to my Prayers please, bury a Wingrider/4D into rock....it will be awesome!!!!

Look at your Avatar.....just proves it can be short as anything but still be one of the best ride experiences in the world!!!!!! Bring on the shorties!!!!!

I hope Alton realise that by messing with the "4 year rule" they could effectively rip a hole in the space time continuom and all of Alton will get swallowed up by a black hole vortex thingy................. Think about it.... 1994, Nemesis 1998, Oblivion 2002, Air 2006, Rita 2010, Th13teen 2013.....Thats just not Right!!!!! Edit, just realised I got my dates wrong........Rita was 2005.....oh well, ignore me

As much as I would like to see a Wooden Coaster at Alton Towers, the Cross Valley coaster is certainly never going to happen, there were too many planning issues with the Trees that currently reside in its path. Also, Thorpe have done some market research into Wooden Coasters and the return on their investment would take too long to make it worthwhile, you've got to remember, they are a Business and are looking for a new attraction that will not only thrill the visitors, but will be enough of a draw to increase attendance numbers and recoop the cost of the installation! I would strongly guess there will not be the sound of wheels running over wood in 2013 I love it when Alton announce new projects, they are very good at creating secrecy around them, although they may have gone overboard on the Scary side of Th13teen, they certainly got everyone talking! I can't wait for (like Robb said) the rumour mill to start up for the next couple of years!

Yay for Ghetto TR's!!! btw... I think I am in love................Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I went during the soft opening (All Year!) I went along in September, and loved the park, everything was so clean and bright! Although I have to admit, I quite liked the Universal Studios Escape logo, got a Polo Shirt with it on somewhere Interesting to see you worked there, did you work there for long?

Very nice.......every time you do something new I am amazed at your level of detail with supports! My only criticism with THBS would be, can you switch on the spinning on the mid course, I know on our spinners over here in the UK you free spin on all of the mid course brakes. Great work again!

Went to Thorpe on Thursday, what a great day!!!! Storm Surge had a 15 minute queue, so had a quick ride, was quite impressed, a good fun ride and didn't get me wet! Always important in English Weather! Stealth broke down a few times and it looked like they ended up giving up trying to get it to run after about 2:30pm, managed to get 3 rides previous to the breakdown, it looked like it kept tripping something as after 5 minutes and no test runs they started launching again. Was surprised to see Stealth running 1 train operation, I could see that one of the trains was in major rehab, but the other one was just sitting there in the garage looking ready to run, I think Stealth should always be a minimum of 2 train operation, runs a lot smoother this way! Got 1 ride on Collossus in the afternoon, I am amazed at the slowness of the crew in the station, they were taking about 5 minutes for each train to dispatch, even though they looked like last years crew, it was running pretty fast too, found Saw (see below) to be rougher, which I normally have the opposite opinion! Managed a quick ride on Saw first thing in the morning, got a lovely headache from it, I can't believe how rough it has got, continual shaking from the car and that lovely double bump at the bottom of the first drop are not good first thing in the morning! Fake Nemesis - got 2 rides on this both with less than 15 minute wait, still love the B&M, but not as good as Real Nemesis Managed 10 rides on Detonator, I have a lot of love for the Fabbri drop towers, great airtime, short ride cycle, all in all a great little ride. Also got 3 rides on Rush with no wait, always been a fan of this, Still get amazed at the screaming that some of the guests do on Rush, as it isn't really a scary ride, just great fun!!! Vortex was closed in the afternoon, so no rides on that, and Samurai was having some work done. Overall, with 16 degrees C weather, and bright blue skies, had a great day! Can't wait for next year though

You seriously need to look up the Blackpool Wild Mouse then......the Aussie one looks great, but the Blackpool one is.......NUTS!!!! Great TR so far, great to see some coverage of the not so much covered Aussie parks! EDIT.....^^^^^ I should have written quicker!!!

I agree with so many comments on here, I always have a pair of Cargo Shorts/Trousers that I wear at parks, they have about 4 zipped/buttoned pockets, these are perfect for wallet/cigarettes/phone/camera, I have no need for lockers, if there is a water ride however, I will use lockers for a £1 just to look after my non waterproof equipment!!!

Can't wait till June