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The Sharks First Day! (Alton Towers 28/03/09)

Brookes

Giga Poster
Me and my cousin (The Grape Wizard) went to Alton Towers today for the opening day and it was a great day! It was an average busy day, not really busy but not exactly empty. The new things seemed very good, which I will go into more detail later.

We turned up at around 10 and went through the gates with our annual passes, and grabbed our new 2009 maps! We strolled down Towers Street and reached the queue board, which said Rita had already pulled a 15 minute queue. So, we headed off to Forbidden Valley to find Nemesis quite empty. We took two early rides on it and it was brilliant as always.

Air seemed to pulling big queues already at this time, so staying in Forbidden Valley, we went on Blade. Oh my god. I have never been on it when it has gone so high, it went really high compared to normal.

Then we walked down to Gloomy Wood and took our ride on Duel. The new blasters were still quite stiff and annoying, but it was a fun ride, and I hit my biggest score ever of 71100, which I was really happy about! :)

Next up, we went back down to Katanga Canyon, and went on the Runaway Mine Train. I have never sat near the front, but we did today and it was quite jerky and bumpy compared to normal. Plus, the ride op stopped it after one circuit, then realised what she had done and sent it around again. For doing this we got an extra ride as she had done it wrong resulting in three circuits. :)

Staying in Katanga Canyon, the rapids had just opened so we thought we would go on it and it was fun as usual. We got a bit wet but nothing major. Also, the new pizza/pasta place in Katanga Canyon looks great, but is more aimed at big groups and families I think, as it is a proper restaurant buffet, and you have to queue for a table. It looks pretty neat compared to the old Pizza Hut/KFC though.

Next up was new for 2009, Sharkbait Reef! After passing it earlier in the morning on the way to Forbidden Valley, it looked great from the outside, and inside it is even better. The themeing is brilliant and there is a lot of detail to the place. It is bigger than expected as from the outside it doesn't look that big, but there are a lot of things to look at and the tunnel bit is especially good.

Next was the Flume, with hardly any queue we decided to take a ride. We both sat at the back and the splash from the first and second drops didn't reach us at all. But the last drop pretty much soaked us, and both taps sprayed us aswell. Not fun.

After that we hit a bit of a standstill as all the big rides seemed to have big queues. So after walking around the park checking all the rides, we decided we might aswell have dinner. So I think we hopped on the cable cars, well we did at least once in the day, to Forbidden Valley. The new cable cars do look very good in my opinion, and quite smart inside, and are way better than the old ones.

We headed to Burger King in Forbidden Valley, and ordered our meal as normal. However, the people who were serving us obviously had no idea that you have to actually give people their food after they have ordered it. They gave me my drink, then served other people, and then realised that they hadn't given me or my cousin our orders. Then they had to ask us again what our order was to give it us. Idiots.

After, we headed over to Oblivion greeted with a queue of around 45 minutes. Realising that everything else had around about the same length queue, we decided to join. After the lengthy queue, we got on the ride, and I was allocated the far left, front row seat, my favourite seat on Oblivion. Hands up, it was amazing as always.

Down to Spinball Whizzer we went next, and we joined the queue, the same length as Oblivion. About five minutes into the queue, it started to rain, and the magical announcement of only three people are allowed in one car because of the weather came. Having been to Alton a lot of times and realising that when it rains and they have to run with only three in a car, they let single riders on every single car with two people. So, remembering this, we left the normal queue and entered the single rider queue, and were on in about five to ten minutes. It was a fun ride as normal and very enjoyable.

By this time, we had done everything we wanted to do except Rita, which had the biggest queue of all. So, we headed back over to Forbidden Valley where we decided to ride Nemesis again. It looked like it had around a 40 minute queue but everything else had around the same length queue so we went in. It also broke down for around five minutes increasing the queue time which wasn't so enjoyable. Air looked broken down for most of the afternoon while we were in Forbidden Valley as we never saw a train go around the track while we were in the Nemesis queue. Our third ride on Nemesis was as brilliant as the first two, and was made even better as we went front row!

Both hungry, we then headed to Burger King again, where my cousin got some chips and I got a BK fusions ice cream. But there again, the same woman who had forgot to give us our food earlier was there and when I asked for a strawberry cheesecake BK fusions ice cream, she gave me a chocolate fudge cake one. Idiot. Again.

Ice cream pot in hand, even if it was the wrong one, we went over to Ugland to take our ride on Rita and see what was going on around the place with the SW6 site. Rita had quite a big queue as normal but the ride was very enjoyable. There is a big banner saying "Yet Another Fantabulous Alton Towers Resort Development COMING 2010" on the fencing around the site, and at the moment all that remains of corkscrew is the ORP store and the control bit of the station. There are a couple of diggers on site but that's about it really.

So, with about half an hour left, we wanted a ride where we could re-ride a few times and have a good whoring session. With virtually no queue, Oblivion was the answer to our prayers, and we got there visited by hardly anyone on it at all. All in all we went on it four times at the end of the day, would have been more but it broke down for a few minutes where we were stuck on the brake run. We got a train to ourselves twice out of the four aswell! :)

I can't remember at which point we did it, but we took a stroll through the new Cloud Cuckoo Land aswell. I hadn't been up that part of the park for a while but it looks really good, I really like it.

So, overall it was a great opening day, despite a few breakdowns. A really good day at Alton had by both of us.

Ride count:

Nemesis x3 (1 Front Row)
Blade x1
Duel x1
RMT x1 (3 Circuits)
Rapids x1
Sharkbait Reef x1
Flume x1
Oblivion x5 (4 Front Rows)
Spinball x1
Rita x1

Pictures coming later when my PC wants to upload them.
 

ciallkennett

Strata Poster
Sounds like a reasonable day at Alton, to which I hope to visit soon.

Did you get to see the sharkies? :p

Does Rita look much bigger now that Corkscrew is gone, like everyone has said? I hope that sign erected in the area delivers :p
 

Brookes

Giga Poster
ciallkennett said:
Sounds like a reasonable day at Alton, to which I hope to visit soon.

Did you get to see the sharkies? :p

Does Rita look much bigger now that Corkscrew is gone, like everyone has said? I hope that sign erected in the area delivers :p

It was a very good day yes, and we did get to see the sharkies. Ugland does look really weird without Corkscrew there and Rita kind of dominates the whole area, I'm not sure whether it really looks bigger, just looks a bit strange. And the sign does make it look promising. :)
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I'll put my trip report in here then for you all :)

Let's get this out of the way first. Compared to other parks opening days... Alton's was blinding. It was busy all day (both car parks almost full which I think is over 10,000) but the queues rarely seemed to get much more over an hour.

To make it fair, let's list the things broken on opening day (wouldn't want Flamingoland and Thorpe feeling we didn't give them a fair treatment).

Here we are, in an image!
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The sign telling you what was closed was broken. Love the irony :)

Met up with Rach and MouseAT and went to examine the new Sea Life:
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It's alright. Sea Life lite. Madame_Furie and Minor_Furie thought it was great. Maxi-Minor_Furie didn't, but he was being a miserable sod most of the day anyway. It was fish in tanks to me. They've made it look pretty good, but I'm going to look at fish, not themery. It's a fine addition for the families, in the right bit of the park.

Next we headed on the new cable cars to Cloud Cuckoo Land. The new cars are excellent. Okay, I can't really comment, but the colours are subdued enough (in my colour blind opinion) to work well. They're comfortable and clear to see out of. Like the monorail refit last year, it's all bringing the backbone of the park up to scratch.

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This is right by Charlie. You can see they're dragging Charlie and the old Cred street together. The Wave Swinger (nicely themed, but not compared to the one at Southend :lol: ), and this sign let people know there's more round the corner. Sadly, it's just a repainted carousel, a repainted frog hopper and the same old other bits (with some fresh paint).

It all fits now though. The design, painting and extra bits and bobs are all very "Charlie-esque". It fits and things don't seem quite so stuck out on their own. However, it's still really just the same kids area it was - but with the Wave Swinger, there's a reason for a family with a small thrill seeker and young kids to be in the area.

The new Cloud Cuckoo Land show is better than last year's, but still dreadful. It's a mish mash of girly friendly and pantomime. Slow ballads and "pretty girl" lead. Then clap your hands and it's behind you. It was really very poor, but MMF sat through it and seemed to like it.

Very disappointed the "new" kiddie play area is the "old" kiddie play area. It's not very good. They need to fit a proper playbarn kind of thing in there which appeals to a wider range, and well, actually appeals!

Don't know if you're supposed to be allowed into the pipes, but it didn't stop MMF
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So, Cloud Cuckoo Land - very underwhelming.

Headed for a picnic and the Pirate Show after this. New Pirate show, obviously written by the same person who did the CCL show. Ballads, pretty girl and pretty boy lead, one pirate. Lots of talking and singing, little action and "fun". If the CCL show is the one for girls, the pirate show should be the one for the lads. Last year's show was stupid, but fun and appealing. This year's is wet and bland.

Quick run on the rapids next (and a wave to TTF out in force) and off to the pool for a swim.

We were very cold by this point. It was that kind of cold and damp that seeps into your marrow. The hail storm pretty much finished us off.

My ride count was an impressive 1 (The Rapids), but the rest of Family_Furie managed Rita too and the RMT.

As for an overall impression. First up, it's nice to see a park being run well. Lots of staff around (staff, not security), all friendly and bright and busy. I love the way all the team leaders and managers carry litter pickers. Theory seems to be "if you're walking from place to place to manage, then make yourself useful and clean up as you see litter". It's great to see top management picking up bags floating around and wrappers - it shows a down to earth commitment.

I love the synergy of Sharkbait reef and Cloud Cuckoo Land. They're integrated well into the areas now, and there's a sense of theme coming through which is great.

However... It's all "good for the UK", but that doesn't mean it's actually anything special. It's almost like they've done the minimum they need to do to get away with making it connected. There's a lack of professionalism or effort somewhere which means it's just not quite as good as it could be.

I'll give you a metaphor here.

The paths between areas are mostly laid tarmac. It's a good, hard wearing surface. Easy to lay and maintain. It's been dug up a few times in places though, and new tarmac laid. The new tarmac is a bit sunken, and a different colour. It just doesn't quite look right. It's a job that has been done, it's been done to a satisfactory standard, and it's in fitting with the current path. However, it's just not quite good enough. Yes, it does the job, but not as well as it could.

This about sums up all the recent additions at Alton for me. They're fixing things, and they're doing the job well. They're just not doing them to the standard you get from any other "world class park".

Look at the floors at Port Aventura. Themed slabs of concrete which fit the area, lowered into place. They don't need to work under them and dig them up, they planned in advance to make sure it would never be required. They don't fix things up as they go along, because most of the time things were planned so well in advance they don't need it.

It's a difficult thing to get across - it's not about minor maintenance (every park needs that), it's about somebody just not quite seeing the big picture, and transferring it down to the men on the floor. Everything is good, and Alton is certainly the UK's top park still by a long shot - it's just there's still not somebody there quite grasping how to run a professional, world class park.

I think it really comes down to the fact shareholders see a lovely cash cow, which earns whether they take that extra step or not. It needs it. They're very close, and much better now than they have been for probably 14 years - they just need to make that extra little bit of effort. They need to actually stand and look at things and see where the synergy fails (and even in Mutiny Bay, it fails here and there where the Merry England retheme wasn't quite done 100% ).

Very critical view, I know. I don't want people to misunderstand though, I still think the park is excellent. I think the fact it's so close to being brilliant is frustrating though and you can see it striving for excellence and falling short. That's better than not making the effort in the first place of course :)

Had a good time though, and we're looking forward to lots more visits this year :)

Sorry we're low on photos. Nothing really new, plus I was doing video and looking after MMF :)

Corkscrew area looks a mess, and oddly small...
 

Rach

Giga Poster
I'm also going to steal this topic to put mine in. I'll leave the rest of the forum for more Thorpe reports. :wink:

I think from this report, out of two Merlin opening days, you'll gather which one was preferred. Coincidentally, the letter of complaint I wrote to Thorpe Park regarding their opening day, they sent me a letter back which arrived Saturday.

I met up with a tired looking MouseAT at Stoke station bright and early on the morning and rather sooner than expected arrived at Alton to be greeted with a busyish area.

Straight through the mass of people at the bottom of Towers Street and straight to Rita to get a ride in before the crowds came. The queue was already pretty long, but it gave an opportunity to take some pics of the Sky Ride cars and also the Corkie site from ground level.

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Advertisement for the new ride for 2010. It does say 'Yet Another Fantabulous Development for the Alton Towers Resort coming 2010'

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Where Corkie's controls and motors were, the building is still standing. Towards the back of the site, the entrance sign is still there but there are no sign of the Corkscrews. And we couldn't find them anywhere.

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Rita was amazing. The power behind her was immense. She didn't kill our necks on the first turn which is always a plus.

Me and Andy then took a walk over to Sharkbait Reef as it had just gone 10. We headed over there and in we went. When it's not heaving, it's a really enjoyable place to be, but when it's busy, it's not very easy to maneuver around. Lovely range of species and the main tank is great.

Headed for the RMT, had a couple of laps on that and thought about waiting for the rapids to open. Joined the queue, then I received the text that furie had arrived, so we headed back down to the Sealife.

Met up with family_furie and headed into the Sealife. Me and Andy got a quarter of the way around before giving up and heading out and to the Flume we went. Flume was more or less walk on but they had ALL the effects working and I got a good drenching from both of those pissing showers at the end. The duck after the second drop was alive this time as well. Haven't seen him for over a year!

Met back up with furie and MMF who had also given up with the Sealife. We waited around to see if the remainder of family_furie were to join us any time soon. They didn't, so we headed into the newly painted Sky Ride Station and jumped on one of the new cars over to Ug Land to have a look around Cloud Cuckoo Land.

The new Sky Ride cars seat 12 people, but that can be a bloody good squash and on a hot day, that's not something you want! Each car also can fit a wheelchair or pushchair in, so they're very family friendly.

Obviously, I couldn't resist taking photos of the Corkie site and it was in a right state. The area where Ug Swinger was has just been paved over and three tables put there. Looks a bit boring really.

Compare this taken in May 07...
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to these taken in March 09...

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It's a bit sad really.

We headed into
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And had a mooch about the place, while MMF went into a pipe

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Twirling Toadstools, the new Ug Swinger was just as powerless as what it was in Ugly Land. Nice view into Coaster Corner though, which also looks like a scrap yard.

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Me and Andy then headed over to Nemesis on the Sky Ride which again was lovely. The cars block out all the noise from outside and they also swing a little bit more than the old ones do which can terrify you over the valley.

Got to Nemesis to discover a 40 odd minute queue, but it provided me with some good photo opportunities as now, I've photographed Air, Blivian and Rita to death. Nemesis was suprisingly powerful. The Gs could certainly be felt at various points.

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Nemesis' waterfalls are a little on the pink side this year!

We headed to get our APs done again after this, in which we were greeted by a half hour queue to get them done. Luckily, while standing in that queue, we avoided the hail storm.
Headed back the rapids to meet up with family_furie again, who departed for the waterpark about 10 minutes later. Poor MMF was a tad cold by then!

Said our goodbyes to family_furie and headed for an Oblivion fix which was amazing! Oblivion was more powerful than what I remember and it was just amazing. The one thing that that ride does and it done it ****ing brilliantly.

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Had a look at Rita's queue after that and thought nah, when it was in the big cattle pen.

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Instead back to Nemesis and this run was more powerful than ever. Really very powerful. Most of my reactions throughout the whole ride was jesus ****ing christ this is ****ing powerful.

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Air had closed down while we were in the AP queue and the queue boards said it was closed. While in Nemesis' queue, we saw Air testing. Just before we got into the station, we saw a train go up with people on. As we hadn't done Air, we ran to that after Nemesis as we had a bus to catch.
10 minute queue later and we were on! That was also shifting some serious power and it was fantastic.
All the rides we road on Saturday in my opinion felt that extra bit powerful. They were brilliant.

Back to the bus stop and a tiny 23 seater bus appears. No chance of about 60 people squeezing on that. Me and Andy got a seat on that one, but they got a new bus and moved everyone onto that one. So I spent the 50 minute trip back to Stoke station standing up balancing by leaning on the back of a chair and using the chair in front for support. It was actually really amusing, but my legs HURT like hell when I got off the bus.

To conclude, Alton had a fantastic opening day. The park may have been busy, but the dispatching was top notch (most of the time, Nemesis' queue after merge point was a little longer than usual.
The park felt clean and tidy and now there is a much stronger emphasis on the designated smoking areas. Most of the designated smoking areas have benches which is a good thing.
Brilliant rides, brilliant company, fantastic staff, ****ing fantastic park!

:D
 

MouseAT

Hyper Poster
Rach, that was one epic trip report. I'm actually glad you've posted a full breakdown of what we did and in what order as it makes my trip report a lot shorter :lol:

Alton's opening day was a shining example of how to run a park. Pretty much everything was up and running, queue times were very reasonable, and all in all we had a really fun, chilled out day. Our ride count was fairly minimal, but that was mainly due to us taking things easy and having a fairly slow morning instead of trying to ride whore before the crowds built up. To be perfectly honest, I was glad to take things easy – I'd been tired on Friday night, and what with partying until 1am in Manchester, being kept awake by the joys of caffeine and then getting up at 6:30 to get an early train to Stoke, I was pretty shattered.

Anyway, rides. I've said it before and I'll say it again – I think Rita is an amazing coaster, and the best accelerator I've ridden to date. That launch has got considerably more power than anything else I've experienced, and despite me whoring that ride to excess last season, it still caught me off guard. Part of me wishes that I'd got to re-ride later on in the day, but neither me nor Rach could be bothered with the annoying cattle pen queue. Oh well, never mind - I'll get to whore it some other time.

I've already made my thoughts known about Sharkbait Reef in a separate thread, so I'll just take the lazy option and quote it here:
MouseAT said:
I was actually quite impressed by Sharkbait Reef. They've made an effort to make the place fit into Mutiny Bay and done a pretty good job with the theme. Sure, it's probably not amazing in the grand scheme of things, but it all looks consistent, and there are some nice little touches that give the place character. It's certainly a big improvement over Chessington's generic "Tent in a field".

Despite the attraction's small size, they've done a really good job with the main tank. The usual underwater tunnel is present, and it provides really good views of the Rays gliding overhead.

Furie summarized it quite nicely when he described the place as a “Sea-Life lite”. It's small, but it's well designed, and has a really good atmosphere to it.

Nemesis was on it's usual, forceful form, which is precisely why I love that ride. It's one of those few rides where every single time I ride it, as I hit the break run, I think wow. It's insane, it really does push you around, and it's awesome for it.

Air was on fantastic form. We rode in row six (the second from back row) and it seemed to be running quicker than I remember it. I'm not sure whether it's just my brain playing tricks on me or whether it'd warmed up throughout the day, but for whatever reason, it was fast, smooth and had some nice forces in places.

There have been a few changes to the food outlets. Pizza Hut has gone. The Katanga Canyon food outlet is now an in-house pizza and pasta place, whilst over in X-Sector, the combined Pizza Hut/KFC building is now KFC only.

I've been giving Merlin a lot of flak over the last year or so for their extensive price increases, but it's nice to be able to say something positive about them for once. It's nice to see that Merlin are prepared to invest in improving their existing attractions. The skyride gondolas take a bit of getting used to, but I have to say they're a big improvement over the tatty old ones. Cloud Cuckoo Land looks better for a new paint job, even if very little has actually changed, and the new name is so much better than “Cred Street”.

There were a few fairly minor operational issues during the day. Rita was only on one train until just before 10, but they did get the second train on fairly quickly once the queue started to build up. Batching wasn't quite as efficient as normal on some of the rides, but that's to be expected with new staff, and should improve once as the season gets underway. Air broke down for an hour or two in the afternoon, although they managed to get it up and running again before the end of the day.

As Rach already mentioned, the bus ride back to Stoke was epic, although rather than being annoyed I found the whole experience strangely amusing, even when the bus got stuck behind a slow moving tractor. Go figure.

Anyway, photos can be found at http://s302.photobucket.com/albums/nn90 ... ch%202009/
 
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