TR : Alton Towers 4th May

[davidmorton]

Excellent!

 

Very few peeps there, minimal to non-existant Qs - only Rita and Spinball in the afternoon had anything like a Q and then 15 mins max.

 

(But I was SRQ-ing anyway so that mattered not to me).

 

Nemesis was down for a little while in the late morning, back up later and Air went down in the afternoon and looked quite sick - didn't see it run again.

 

Park was clean, staff were happy, I was happy - reinstilled my enthusiasm for the place.

 

Only downers was stupid traffic - I only live 40 miles away yet it took me 2 hours to get there and almost as much to get back. Stupid Staffordshire moorlands, stupid Manchester/Stockport traffic, etc.

 

V.happy with the new SRQ's (wasn't open on Air at all or Nemesis in the morning) - basically walk on for the big rides - cool.

 

 

Rides,

 

SWx2 - a SW virgin no more (didn't go last season at all!) - OK I guess, I've been on other spinning/mice (Kennywood's springs to mind as being better) - good themeing though and fun.

 

Ritax3 - a bit underwhelmed I think, the initial launch is pretty good but it gives up a bit too soon (spoilt by TTD I guess which keeps going for twice as long (the launch bit I mean)) - a bit of air on the first hill and nothing much else

 

Airx2 - a cool ride - and apart from the big loop that you take on your back, very enjoyable (hasn't quite got the wow factor of the Superman's pretzel loop though)

 

Nemesisx5 - what can you say, best ride on the planet.

 

Hex - always impressed by how clever this one is.

 

Corkscrew - always gotta do it, just for old-times sake - was a bit tame and lifeless though - the helix felt a lot more forceful 25 years ago!

 

Flume - again not been on this since the retheme, same ride just spruced up - I remember Q-ing for this for hours in the season it opened (and none of your nice windy around the park Qs - just back and forth cattle pens in them days)

 

Rapids - boat to myself, didn't get too wet, still a good ride; I like the way that it seems to go all over the place and you can never get a good idea of its overall layout.

Oblivion - never really rated this, worth a ride when its walkon though - fairly photo-genic though.

 

Ripsaw - not a huge fan of Top Spins (although I am quite a fan of PKI's huge Top Spin)

 

Minetrain - I was walking past.

 

A few circuits on the cable car, thank you and good night.

 

----

 

Some pix (my new camera works well - its 7.1 meg and the originals are 3072x2300 pixles - these are about 20% size!)

 

Waterfalls - ON..

 

Would you like a ROLL with that?

 

Wing-OVER...

 

Going DOWN...

 

The old girl and the new upstart....

 

A balloon monster...

[Freefall]

WOW let me be the first to say great pictures! But you didn’t mention Malcolm the monorail!!!!

[nemesis-storm]

Great Pic's David, really love the Oblivlion one.

 

The Nemesis picture looks familiar

 

[Inferno Insane]

Great TR and Photo's. Alton this year is much better than pass years I been. Really took time giving it a refresh and finally putting SRQ on Nemesis which works a dream (if you like many re-rides)

[davidmorton]

^^

 

The blood/water is reder in my pic, yours is a bit "pink" I think!

 

Must be a popular spot in the Q-line for piccys!

 

Spent ages trying to get a good pic of Oblivion and its mist - this is about the best...

[Martyn]

Haha, yeah that Nemesis spot is very popular, when we were there with the Coasterforce trip in April I was there filming and a big gap appeared in the queue, so the rest of the group just spread out a bit to fill it while I got the shot (which ironically, didn't make the final video!) that's where a group of 30 or so comes in handy!

 

Lovely pictures as usual Dave, I had a good play with the C70 at work, and it's a lovely camera, I went for the C60 myself as it was more compact and (obviously) cheaper. The two Oblivion pictures are very nice, it looks like the lens is really wide, but apparantly it's the standard 38mm.

 

It seems that everyone's thoughts are generally the same about Rita, if you've been across the pond and ridden any of the Rockets there, you'll find it tame, if not, it's the most intense launch ever! I'm glad that I did Xcelerator first, as the gradual increase in launch intensity wouldn't have been as cool as being chucked in the deep end with Xcelerator first!