rctneil

Smiler - Alton Towers

Agree!, The best questions to ask at IAAPA most definitely seem to be the more unique questions about stuff in the past and I think Robb has that nailed perfectly this year with questions like "Why did HRP fail" and "Your most interesting project never built.". Please ask more like this, very very interesting. I would be interested to know things along the line of "How long does it normally take a concept for an element or new vehicle design to get to a full on manufacturing and installation phase?" More questions on things they can answer but things we don't normally get to hear about. (Maybe add some hints to Intamin to push more Mega-Lites to parks. )

I know that Alton have looked into wood on several occasions and it's such a shame that one has never materialised there. If it's done right it could be amazing. My own opinions on the matter is that the public's thoughts on wooden coasters in the UK is that they are all old, loud and rough. They just need to go for it and build something awesome.

Take a look at the photo above on how to implement a theming around it. I think if its done right, it could really cool! The concept does give the earlier preview a better feel than I originally thought, I have to admit.

Some nice stuff at IAAPA this year. The new lead cars all look nice. Mini Millenium Fliers are cute and would be perfect for all the kiddie woodies out there. The Viper looks like really long but rather standard GCI. Not a bad thing but there is nothing to make it stand out apart from how giant and long it is. Not keen on the Mack Splash and Drop ride concept. Loving the model of Smiler. I really wish the track was painted yellow is real life! GCI's Switchback idea does look a nice idea. Seem to reply on gravity to get the train moving again after the switch. Seem to have been really well thought through to keep it all as simple as possible.

Invertigo: Invertigo - California's Great America G.I.B: DeJa Vu - Six Flags Magic Mountain SLC: Lethal Weapon - Warner Bros Movie World Flying Dutchman: X-Flight - Geauga Lake Mine Train: Big Thunder Mountain - Disneyland Paris Roller Skater: Road Runner Express - Warner Bros Movie World Boomerang: Boomerang - Knott's Berry Farm Junior Boomerang: Ben 10: Ultimate Mission - Drayton Manor Suspended Family Coaster: Runaway Reptar - Dreamworld LSM: Rock n' Roller Coaster - Walt Disney Studios Tilt Coaster: Gravity Max - Lihpao Land Big Air: Big Air - E-DA Theme Park Everest Type - Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars - Hong Kong Disneyland Not a single first Vekoma from the UK apart from the newer Junior Boomerang either which is surprising unless there is one I can't remember! Shows how much the TPR trips have helped. Thanks R&E!

My last was Nemesis at Alton Towers. Finished the coaster year off nicely! I can't see myself riding more coasters until next year but if I do it'll be at Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park

So excited to ride this next year. Love how they are just squeezing it in between other things. The whole park looks awesome and cannot wait to visit it.

So, after a bit of a break, i'm back for the final day in Taiwan! The final day was at Leofoo Theme Park and Window on China. Our hotel the previous night was the on park property safari hotel directly besides the park. This made our journey in the morning very short, even so we decided to go via coach! Wakey Wakey animals! This little fella and his friends were climbing all over the boardwalk and chasing other animals in their enclosures. Oooh, What's that? As Robb had organised some ERT for us this morning we were led into the park via a staff only area which led straight to the arabian themed section. oooh, Are we at DisneySea? - No, most definitely not Now, it seemed like the park didn't want to open it's coasters at that time and instead wanted us to have ERT on their ring of fire ride. Myself and Anth subjected ourselves to the torture of the ring of fire whilst everyone else stood and watched in delight! I think Robb has some very strange photos from the GoPro of us in pain on this contraption. Pain visualised It is Disney! - No, it most certainly is not. As the coaster ERT idea didn't seem to be working, Robb managed to wangle us into getting a backstage walkaround of the parks Indy style dark ride:- Sultans Adventure! oooh, Indy style dark ride! These things were live! - Not locked off at all and they were encouraging us to take a stroll around and to keep stepping over the rails. I think everyone stepped over very gingerly and only when absolutely necessary! A jeep vehicle in the circuit Loving the loudspeaker theming at the back! A closer look at the front of one of the jeeps. Run!!!!!! This was a kind of Pepper's Ghost illusion Maybe Elissa took Oceanic 814? A group photo inside Sultan's Adventure courtesy of Robb's phone. Argh!!!! - It's behind you, err me! Are you my MUMMY? Can anyone guess what happens next? Creepy tall dragony monster things that wiggled above you but made no sound at all! After our tour we headed to Sahara Twist which is an Intamin Twist and Turn coaster. It was still down and no one around knew nothing about when it would open. The park was very odd, goats just wandering around Off we went to find the other coaster, we found "The Lost World" which must be an attraction of some kind but turned out to be a load of small paths and a few dinosaurs scattered around. The parks second coaster is a standard layout Vekoma Roller Skater called Little Rattler. We found Little Rattler. Wheee! Keith having way too much fun After riding Little Rattler we sped back to Sahara Twist and were pleased to find it had finally opened. It was actually a cool little ride. You could definitely tell it was an older style coaster but I really enjoyed it! Sultans Adventure was was nowhere as violent with it's ride motions as the Indy rides are and not a lot of sound effects or moving animatronics at all. It was nice seeing a park have a bash at an Indy system based ride though. Back to Sultan's Adventure for an actual ride through. The far side of the Lost World path ride was the flume ride. It looked pretty impressive with the large dinosaurs looming over the drops. We found dinosaurs Next we took a ride on the parks drop tower after a huge queue of about 15 people took a good long 35-40 minutes to go through! (The park was not great at their operations) - oh, and this park was quite busy compared to all the other parks in Taiwan that we visited. NOOOOO!!! Don't hit the Llama! At the back of the park was Screaming Condor, a lovely sculpture placed here by Intamin. Moving on.... ooooh, Screaming Condor it's an Intamin... ... Pretty sculpture! Still not DisneySea If not DisneySea, then maybe UgLand at Alton Towers?, Nope, not even that! Later in the afternoon, Robb took Kristen on the Horses and he thought the horses would just walk around the small carousel they were attached to, but oh no, this is Taiwan, they sit you on a horse and then a keeper walks the horse around the theme park! When the horse returned it was time to feed the horse some carrots when we discovered the amazing but totally gross photos we could get. I think we spent a stupidly long ride grabbing shots similar to the below: Onwards, from Leofoo to Window on China! Window on China was about 15 minutes away (maybe less) and is primarily a miniatures based park. Window on China was a very very nicely themed and landscaped park. This park was split in two so to get to the parks two coasters you had to take a train. It was the fastest miniature train I have ever ridden! Wheeeee! on the train First coaster of the park was the Mini Mine Train, this is the smallest of Vekoma's Roller Skater offering Miles and Keith on Mini Mine Train The second coaster was indoors and was sort of themed to space and was in the dark with light up multicoloured shapes. I think on this day we rode all the styles of Roller Skater than Vekoma sells! If you are a mad Vekoma fan then Taiwan seems the place to go! At the time I thought this was my 399th coaster and the following coaster:- Galaxy Express 999 in Japan would be my 400th but it actually turns out that this coaster was my 400th. It wasn't a bad little ride anyway so YAYA! Number 400 for me! The aforementioned miniatures This was a syrup waffle type thing. Tasted amazing. oooh. Reminders of home The park also had a Chute the Chutes ride. The park also had this very weird display of OPEN! I have no idea what it is. Some sort of cartoon, comic? It seemed to involve 7-Eleven and a lot of cats! OPEN! OPEN! OPEN! Good deed being done for the day OPEN! OPEN! More miniatures including places I visited in China last year! I'm sure I have been here (Doesn't seem to be any red pandas?) and here JCZilla invades Taiwan!!!!!! The miniatures area also had a nice replica of Taiwan Airport, the planes even moved around. That evening we stayed at the Taiwanese Airport Hotel. Very nice hotel and seemed very modern. The hotel has a great atmosphere that evening as it was playing host to the MAKE MUSIC TAIWAN mini festival. The good atmosphere was equalled out by a horrible feeling of "trip at it's end" but I had the awesome thought of an amazing upcoming trip in Japan starting the following day! One thing I learnt at the end of this trip was to not leave my camera unattended! Some photos below: Looking out the hotel room window over at the airports runways and the MAKE MUSIC TAIWAN festival. Post and, for some of us Pre, trip drinks Don't leave your cameras unnattended Don't leave your cameras unnattended So, here we are at the end! My highest thanks to Robb & Elissa for organising and running the trip so superbly and thanks to the small group of people that made it all awesome! Hope to see you again soon! I might do a separate topic with 1 or 2 posts highlighting several of my photos from Japan rather than an entire photo trip report as other people do a much better job at them than I do. Go see Roberts Japan report (it's awesome!) See you next time...

The Mine Coaster at Sun Park has cats living under it and Pine Forest Flying mouse at Fishermans Wharf has chickens wandering around the coasters footprint!

Glad to see it's back up and running. I'm sure they just wanted to leave it closed until the end of the season so they can do full maintenance on it but with 2 of the busiest days coming up this weekend they had no choice but to get it back up and running. I may be there Sunday so will see how it is then. I hope it has a more reliable 2014 season!

Excellent report of the Universal Studios day Robert! It really is a fantastic park but a shame it was raining. I guess USJ was the best park we could have been at on a rainy day due to all the indoor attractions. Space Fantasy has to be the surprise ride of the trip, I knew literally nothing about it and it a ride filled full of fun and the mirror room is awesome near the end. I also have no clue as to the real story but I guess it works! Dare I admit it, but I have never seen Back to the Future, so the ride was very bizarre to me and made me very dizzy. Jaws was excellent as I had heard, totally over the top skippers but glad I managed to ride at least one of the versions of Jaws before they both go. Really enjoyed jurassic park too. Nice to see all the effects working and yes it was different from the one I had previously ridden at USH. I thoroughly enjoyed the Spiderman walkthrough. Was an honour to get to do this and it looks spectacular, the attention to detail is superb as well. I have walked around the ride, seen the cars in motion, heard the soundtrack, seen all the clips and sat in the cars but still have not had the chance to ride it! Ah well, i'm sure eventually I'll make it to either version when it is operating! Can't wait for the next update. Neil

I had heard that Smiler was expected to open at mid day today but as it's 14:40 now it doesn't look likely. I guess Alton just have to make an executive decision as they only have 1 week to go but next weekend could be very very busy as it's the Fireworks event to close out the season so i'm unsure what they'll do.

Raptor Attack at Lightwater Valley yesterday early evening.

I heard about the issues on the Smiler yesterday and apparently it was from some part of the vertical lift. Several small parts landed in the netting above the queueline. I was also told a that a huge amount of work is ready to be done over the closed season including the breaking up and refilling of some footers to improve how the ride sits. I also hope something happens with the second half of the cobra roll as there is a rather large jolt there. It's practically unnoticeable when looking at the track but when watching trains traverse it and whilst riding you can see and feel the jolt. I have to say, I rode the Smiler twice just over a week ago in the dark during Scarefest and it ran the best it has done all season. Still not silky smooth and it still has it's vibrations but it seemed to traverse the track much much better resulting in a much quieter ride. It's a real shame how many issues it has had though but I do expect a lot of work to be done over the closed months which should help the ride have a more stable 2014 operating season.

I heard about this a few days ago. It was truly a bizarre ride and I think it's past due for being replaced. Glad I got to ride it before it goes though!

Loved this in 2009! The backstage tour where we could sit underneath the track as it passed over was incredible. It had nice pacing and I liked the drop out of the station (if it was this ride!) Here's a photo of the bottom of the train as it raced above us!

This one right here is probably the worst I've seen. Oooh, Loved that ride! It quite like the funky colours, makes it stand out.

I loved this ride. It gets pretty intense near the end with the tight turns and rather quick transitions. I always check it's still there when I drive north on the M6. I hope somewhere buys it. Maybe it could do well at Lightwater.

Best part of the ride is the name: Episode of Little Fairies! The ride was not too bad either. Worst part was the climb to the top of the hill to climb the stairs to the station. I also liked how the path took you all underneath the coaster which allowed you to take some interesting photos from angles not normally possible. This this cloned anywhere else?

Several years ago I would have gone for Vekoma but I have ridden a load of really good Vekoma rides so they are nowhere near the worst. Take Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, the Space Mountain rides (California and Hong Kong), Gravity Max, Big Air, Kumali and i'm sure there are a lot of others too. I have to agree that some of their older coasters and the SLC's and boomerangs are not terribly pleasant but they look to be improving immensely. I would then have said Togo after Manhattan Express and Shockwave (KD) but after riding several Togo rides in Japan, they actually weren't that bad. Yes, they do look very retro but they were relatively smooth and hardly any headbanging. The Togo standup at Rusutsu, while not rough did seem to have the strange behaviour of the seat riding up and down as the train cycled around. They normally should be locked in placed but this one raised and lowered. Especially visible whilst going around the loop. I have to say the Chinese Knock off companies too. Golden Horse, etcetera. The Golden Horse spinners are badly made clones. They hardly spin at all and the fact that you have this stupid annoying shoulder seatbelt and the restraints are locked by a metal chain from the car floor loop up and over a peg on the restraint column also indicate that they didn't even copy it properly! This is not to say that all rides in China are bad, far from it! Just the ones built by the knockoff companies.

The Swarm at Thorpe Park a week last Friday in the dark!

If anyone is considering going to China and riding one of the two Meisho Shuttle Loops, I can whole heartedly recommend it to be this one and i'm sure everyone else would agree on that count! - I can't think of anyone who panicked at least a little on the other one at Shijingshan.

I too am on the list for Tokyo DisneySEA. It's what a THEME park should be. The rides fit the theme and it's amazing how natural but odd it all looks and it all works beautifully well.

It actually looks like a really nice coaster and i'm glad Perth now has a good substantial coaster to call their own. Looking forward to hearing the first rider reports.