Photo TR: Alton Towers

[CoNNoR]

So the summer has well and truly started in England.So to get the ball rolling I decided to go to Alton towers for the day and all I can say is wow I love this park it has great people and amazing rides the ride ops was really friendly.So thank you Alton towers and I should be back soon.

 

Th13teen was closed ALL day and Air broke down twice but I got on it in the end. Oblivion on was running amazingly today as was Nemesis I cannot believe how much fun I had anyway here's the pics enjoy

 

ADMIN EDIT: I have gone ahead and updated your thread's title to include "Photo TR:" at the front. In the future, just remember to add this notation if you are posting a photo report. Aside from that, welcome to TPR and thanks for sharing this trip report with us!

We start with the Corkscrew shame I have to go to Flamingo land to ride this thing now

It's Alton towers 30Th birthday so they had..... CAKE!!!!!!!

Alton towers wouldn't be Alton towers without.....the towers lol

There is some really beautiful places at Alton towers

Time to head to Sonic Spinbal. This park is also Elissa friendly

Feeeeel the rush I did

Horse shoe I don't think so this is a donkey shoe

Sonic Spinball through the tree's

I have an off ride video of Oblivion I will put it up later but for now here's a money shot

Here's Katanga canyon and the reason I'm here is ?

For Runaway Mine Train and is this a credit ?

Anyway enough of kiddie coasters for now it's time for Air but it was broke so i took this photo of it lol

This is what happened the last time TPR was here

I also got this cool shot of Nemesis

Nemesis THROUGH THE TREE'S lol

I love the twisted layout of this ride

Anyway Air is back up and running so i went on it

I took the Sky ride up to mutiny bay so that means Sky ride POV

Mutiny bay still seams popular I only came down here to get some food though lol

Yes I am a credit whore

We finish as we started at the Corkscrew well that's all folks hope you enjoyed the trip report

Edited June 6, 2010 by CoNNoR

[tiger01]

Nice TR! Lot's of photos of Spinball whizzer???

[CoNNoR]

How do you upload off ride videos ?

[Montu Maniac]

Nice Review !!!! Nice Pictures ....

[larrygator]

How do you upload off ride videos ?

 

It's in this thread

[CoNNoR]

Thanks again Larry the off ride video should be up soon and just another question how do you upload you TR to the park index ?

[Hydraglow]

Nice first photo TR. That is an excellent shot of Oblivion.

 

Too bad Thirteen was closed, maybe another time.

 

You might have to notify Robb for park index. I'm not sure how that works.

[andyuk200523]

You cannot upload your TR to the Park Index, certain TR's will get added depending on what Larry deems to be suitable for the Park Index.

 

Nice TR btw.

[CoNNoR]

Thank you for the comment's and my mum said that I might be allowed to go to Alton towers again in the next school holidays so th13teen best be working lol

[CoNNoR]

Here's the off ride video

PICT0608.AVI

[jedimaster1227]

^If you'd like to post that video to Coastertube, more people will be able to stream it successfully. Just embed the uploaded video (as described in the same link Larry gave you) and delete the original video attachment, and it'll look much better!

Edited June 5, 2010 by jedimaster1227

[Divv3k]

Connor, thanks for posting the TR! It's always nice to see new TPR members posting trip reports! You sent me a message asking for my thoughts on your TR and asked for where I think you might be able to improve. So I'll see if I can give you some pointers for your future TRs.

 

Note that I don't think that there is any one hard and fast correct way of doing a trip report, this is just what works for me when I do mine. There are people out there who far better TRs than me who employ very different techniques. But hopefully this will help you out.

 

If you haven't already checked it out you should read Robb's recent thread on doing a good TR. It was a similar thread that Robb posted a few years ago which really taught me how to do a TR. The other best advice I can give you on doing good trip reports is to read other trip reports! Honestly, the more you read the better you will get at it. There are LOADS of amazing TRs in the Trip Report Archive and new ones are getting posted to the front page on a daily basis. My personal rule is to read as many TRs as appear on the site. And even if I can't read them all due to time I always make sure I check out something that goes on the front page. The more you read the more you realise what makes a good report and also what makes a bad report.

 

So onto your report. First of all, I like the fact that you started by mentioning that Thirteen was closed all day but didn't moan and whine about it. I've seen too many TRs where people just set a bad tone for the whole TR by bitching about how their whole day was ruined because the new ride was broken. So thanks for just mentioning Thirteen and pointing out the reason why there's no photos of it in the report. I imagine you must have been pretty disappointed to find out that the ride was down on your visit.

 

What I would say about your opening paragraph, is that it's all one long sentence which makes it quite hard to read. In the future try writing a couple of paragraphs of a couple of sentences each telling us about your day. This section can be as long or as short as you want it to be. A lot of people like skipping the text section because they think no one reads it but I ALWAYS read the text section at the start. It gives some good context for the TR and gives us an idea of what to expect from the report.

 

Just watch the grammar throughout the report. Your spelling and punctuation is a reflection on you and you should be wanting to come across as good as possible in order to get people to want to read your report.

 

Onto the photos - I'll be honest: while there's some good ones in there, there are a few bad ones too, which I wouldn't have included. I'll go through your photos and give you my thoughts.

 

* Starting with a photo of the new Corkscrew entrance is a good move in my view. It's a nice opening image (I think I did something similar in my TR this year!)

* The next three photos of the entrance, Towers and water I probably wouldn't have posted right next to each other. By the time I got to the photo of the water I was really looking for a photo of a ride or at least something a bit different. It was maybe a bit too similar to the two preceding photos. I'm not saying don't use them all in the TR, but you could have maybe used the photo of the water later in the TR with the same caption and it would have had a better effect. Remember, you don't have to post the photos in the order you took them. Ultimately, you are telling a story and you want it to be structured in the way that tells that story the best.

* The second photo of the Sonic statue is unnecessary, it's just showing us what we've seen in the previous photo except that you aren't in it! I'm all for people photos in trip reports, so when faced with a choice of a photo without someone on the trip in it or without I'll almost always go for the one with the person in it. The fact that it's you makes it better in this case as it lets us see you at the park and lets us put a face to the person telling the story. So try not to be too repetitive with your photos.

* Your photo of Spinball's horseshoe doesn't have a train in it. That's a cardinal TR sin in my view. Your photos of coasters should always have a train with riders in it (unless it's a construction photo, or is showing off something really specific about the track).

* The photo captioned "Some of Sonic Spinball's layout" doesn't really show us much of Spinball's layout at all. It's more a photo of a crowd of people milling around with a little bit of Spinball in the background. I'm not really sure what it's supposed to be a photo of. I would only include a photo like this if I noticed somehting really funny going on and had a good caption for it.

* The photo captioned "My mum took this one" I wouldn't have included. It's just a photo of the supports that really isn't of any value. It looks leek you might just be including it because it was on the memory card at the end of the day. Please remember that you don't have to post every photo taken. Good photo selection is key to a good TR. On my last trip to Alton I took about 150 photos and included about 50 of them in the TR. Some times I'll use even less than that ratio. Just don't fall into the trap of posting every photo you have to pad your TR out. The reader will get fed up really quickly if they are looking at bad photos (and might not look at future TRs that you post!)

* Your photo of Spinabll from a distance is a good one. It shows a lot more of Spinball's layout than the one two photos up!

* I probably wouldn't have posted a photo of the Mine Train sign unless I had a photo of the ride itself to follow it up with. (Unless Larry needed the sign for the Park Index!) You're setting up an expectation by posting the sign photo and then you're not living up to that expectation by skipping over to another ride.

* The photo captioned "I also got this cool shot of Nemesis" would have been cooler if the train was in focus and there wasn't something obstructing top left corner of the photo. The advice I'd give is take more photos of rides! It can be touch photographing a train that moves at 50mph and getting it in focus. The more you take the more chances you have of getting a really cool one!

* The photo captioned "Nemesis has such a twisted layout" isn't really a photo showing Nemesis' layout but instead, it's a photo of a tree. I wouldn't have used this photo personally, but if you really wanted to then you should acknowledge the fact that the tree is the main focus of the shot. (i.e. "Nemesis through the trees!")

* Again, you posted another photo of the track without a train.

* The Sky Ride photo is nice and it shows off the newly painted carriages quite well!

* Again, you posted a photo of a ride sign without a photo of the ride itself.

* Of course, finishing with a photo of yourself is a good move in my book! I would maybe just finish with a "Hope you enjoyed the report!" or a "Thanks for reading!" just to bring a bit of closure to the report.

 

So all in all I think you've got some good stuff in there. There are a few things that you could work on for your next report but for a first report at fourteen years old you did well. You captioned every photo which is important, in my view.

 

Next time I would advise that you take a lot more photos and then when you get home go through them all a couple of times and select the ones that tell your story the best. If you find that you are posting every photo that you are taking then you are probably doing something wrong.

 

I hope this advice helps, I know it's not always easy to read where you've went wrong but you wanted a bit of honesty from me, right? If you take this advice and the advice of others on the site you will find that your TRs will only get better!

 

I hope you've found this useful and I look forward to your next TR! (Hopefully involving your thoughts on Thirteen!)

[CoNNoR]

Thanks divv I shall take your advice on board for my next TR which hopefully will be soon but this time it wont be Alton towers as it is to far away. It will most likely be flamingo land as it is my home park and it doesnt take long to get there. P.S can I be part of the Brit crew please lol

[fatdaddy]

Wish my trip reports came out this good, great pictures by the way.

[CoNNoR]

Thanks for all the comments they mean a lot i cannot believe that i got two whole pages for this little trip

[raptor6]

You had a bunch of nice photos of Alton Towers.

 

I really want to check this park out sometime soon. It would be nice to contrast my home park of Cedar Point's motto of bigger and faster is better (not that there's anything wrong with that!) to that of Alton Towers of we can't build very tall, let make the ride really unique.

 

Hopefully, I can study abroad in England next year!

[CoNNoR]

I should be going to flamingo land in the next school Holiday's and I'm going to do a trip report on that seen as this one has gone so well.

[TPDave]

P.S can I be part of the Brit crew please lol

 

Since when did Divv hold the keys to the Brit Crew?!

 

Dave

[Divv3k]

P.S can I be part of the Brit crew please lol

 

Since when did Divv hold the keys to the Brit Crew?!

 

Dave

 

Yeah, if that was the case no way TPDave would get in!

[oriolat]

I don't know if someone else noticed on the video but aren't the trains on Oblivion not stopping before the drop anymore?

 

From what I saw the train barely stops and then just drops. Isn't it meant to stop for 3 secs or so?

[TPDave]

Yeah, as far as I can remember it's always changed around a bit. It always seems to be on days when there's actually a queue for the ride they hold it for less long. I'm not sure how much it would really increase capacity to hold it for a shorter time though :S

 

Dave

[downunder]

I was there on Wednesday and they were holding though it seemed much shorter than the other dive machine I've been on, it was like stop, then drop. There was a large line the day I was there.

[CoNNoR]

Yeah when I went at the start of the day it was holding longer than when I took the video when it was holding for like a second and who do I ask to be part of the Brit crew ? lol

[CoNNoR]

I can finally upload my video now so here you go [coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=Oblivion_Off_Ride_tred[/coastertube]

[The SETGO Guys]

Removed by user

Edited January 5, 2012 by The SETGO Guys