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Alton Towers - SW7 - "The Smiler"

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Post May 24th, 2013, 5:28 am

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Originally posted by gouldy

It wasn't just the queueling, based on the photos for TT Live, there is loads of stuff that's not ready. Alton Towers must have known the ride wasn't going to be ready for the 23rd, a long time before they actually cancelled opening. What a total disaster. They couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.


Watched the Apprentice recently? [;)]
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Post May 24th, 2013, 6:49 am
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Originally posted by gouldy
They couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.


Can you translate to Americanese please?
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Post May 24th, 2013, 9:01 am

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Originally posted by Coasterkidmwm

Originally posted by gouldy
They couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.


Can you translate to Americanese please?


They couldn't organise a gun crime in America!
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Post May 24th, 2013, 9:38 am
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Originally posted by flamingemu

Originally posted by Coasterkidmwm

Originally posted by gouldy
They couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.


Can you translate to Americanese please?


They couldn't organise a gun crime in America!



[lol] yes, that's actually pretty analogous.


Essentially: "They couldn't organise becoming inebriated in a beer manufacturing facility", or similarly "They couldn't organise a s3xual encounter in a brothel".




As for Smiler: it seems AT were not as forthcoming as they should have been about the reasons for the delay, either, as today the entire of X-Sector is closed to guests while it appears that big changes are made to power cables within that area of the park.

Post May 24th, 2013, 10:53 am
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Sorry I thought piss only involved toilets and was confused, I get it now.
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Post May 24th, 2013, 10:55 am

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Originally posted by Coasterkidmwm

Sorry I thought piss only involved toilets and was confused, I get it now.


"Piss up" is pretty taboo :p
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Post May 24th, 2013, 2:00 pm
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Can you change your sig flamingemu it is distorting the forum.

EDIT: TY Oscar

Post May 24th, 2013, 5:32 pm
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Did they underestimate how much power all those LED screens and stuff were using up? That's pretty embarrassing.
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Post May 26th, 2013, 5:48 pm
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Post May 26th, 2013, 10:11 pm
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First you guys can't connect boreholes in W. Antarctica and now you can't open a roller coaster that had news people on it already.


British fail lolz
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Post May 27th, 2013, 2:07 pm
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"You guys"...? I had nothing to do with this! Gerstlauer used their own construction company, so if this is anyone's fault, it's Germany's [lol]

But in all seriousness, this whole thing has been extremely poorly managed and communicated by Alton Towers.

Post May 27th, 2013, 3:55 pm
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Well your country needs a "Deja Vu" I suppose.
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Post May 27th, 2013, 4:40 pm
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Originally posted by gouldy

"You guys"...? I had nothing to do with this! Gerstlauer used their own construction company, so if this is anyone's fault, it's Germany's [lol]

But in all seriousness, this whole thing has been extremely poorly managed and communicated by Alton Towers.


To be fair it was a British sub-contractor that thought it was fine to dig trenches without proper support (usually get absolutely mauled by H&S in the construction industry for doing this).
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Post May 28th, 2013, 5:30 am
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Post May 28th, 2013, 7:13 am

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Seriously will this ride actually ever be open oh my god ._.
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Post May 28th, 2013, 7:16 am
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I'm quietly confident it will open on Friday, but that really is just me being hopeful. It's just that all of their advertisement still says "Open May 2013" (could be a typo, meant to say "May open 2013"), so with Friday being the 31st... could just be! But we'll have to wait and see.

Post May 28th, 2013, 12:12 pm
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Sounds like Deja Vu discussion lol.
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Post May 31st, 2013, 10:11 am
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So me and t'missus decided to go to the park today, thinking there was an off chance it might be open.... so glad we did! Waited in the morning near Smiler after over hearing that there was a chance it would be open today from one of the staff. Waited about 2 hours or so, then it opened and we were let down into the queue area for another half an hour or so of queueing. Absolutely well worth it! We were queueing with some very friendly and very excited teenage girls, though, which... you know... just makes everything better, ha.

Took some snaps and that.

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The ride was completely awesome! It was a lot smoother than I was expecting it to be, given that it's Gerstlauer; however there were a few jerky spots, the most noticable being on the second part of the Cobra Roll - a pretty big jerk there. But very smooth on the whole.

That 3D projection mapping is all on the indoor queue area, and not in the tunnel on the ride as I previously thought it might be. The indoor section of the queue is really awesome, though, to be fair!


Some pano photos to come later, if they turn out to be any good.

Post May 31st, 2013, 10:50 am
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A quick little video I shot of the general atmosphere in the queue area:


Post May 31st, 2013, 11:14 am

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i seriously cannot wait to be there on Monday. could go Saturday or Sunday but Monday is out of the half term so ill wait.
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Post May 31st, 2013, 11:15 am
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You should post a bunch of iPhone pics taken at 45 degree angles so that they're useless, instagram filter them, and then post a picture of like a hamburger you bought.
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Post May 31st, 2013, 11:30 am

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How was it?
(Better than... worse than...)
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Post May 31st, 2013, 12:40 pm
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Bit of squeal.

More importantly... when are you taking me? :P
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Post May 31st, 2013, 1:34 pm
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Anytime you want Matt, I can book a day off work whenever (pretty much, have to ask first ha).


The ride really was good. I wouldn't say they've surpassed Nemesis, but I will now be going to Alton Towers to ride Nemesis AND this, not just Nemesis. Like I said before, it's very smooth for a Gerstlauer, with only odd jerks here and there, typical Gerst jerks. Basically, you're constantly reminded during the ride, that you're definitely not riding a B&M; but it is by no means uncomfortable. If you've ever ridden Saw, this is a LOT smoother than that.

Really impressed with the queue line, even though it's a cattle pen, it feels really open and unclaustraphobic, it feels like the only thing really enclosing you is the ride itself. It's awesome to watch the ride from the queue. The indoor queue area is very impressive though, they've got all really odd shapes ont he wall which have then got 3D looking light shows on them, which can be really disorientating and pretty impressive. Also, on exiting the ride, there are similar effects that are also really disorientating; very well done to the design team for that.

The ride does self duel very well. It differs from ride to ride, but often the trains reach the peak of both lift hills at the same time and then meet each other at certain points around the track.

There is definitely no other "World first", or secret element. The world first is just the fact that it has 14 inversions, which is what we had presumed, but still a little bit of a shame. The indoor drop and roll were a lot cooler than expected, though; it's taken in near pitch black and genuinely is disorientating. The drop felt like it would be really good on the back row, because it was damn good in the second row.


On first impressions, I'd give the ride a solid 9/10.

Looking forward to going again on a less busy day, so I can ride it in other spots on the train (I rode it on the 2nd row, on the outside left seat).


Took a couple of panos, but this is the only one that came out well, and it's only of the final break run, heh:

Image


This photo from TowersStreet's TheSmilerLive shows some of the light mapping effects in the indoor queue area, although obviously doesn't quite do the effect justice:

Image


As I was saying with the dueling of the ride, the way the ride is, it doesn't matter if the two trains are a bit off time at the lifts, there will be at least one point on the ride where they get very close to one another. This video shows that quite well, as you can see they start quite far apart, but still have an excellent dueling moment on the Staffordshire Knot and Cobra Roll:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=57 ... =2&theater

Post May 31st, 2013, 3:53 pm

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