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I was lucky enough to ride Wicker Man last Saturday - I say lucky because the ride's availability was like a yo-yo all day. It's a winner. It's not going to win any awards for being the most extreme or "world's first <who cares>" or the fastest or the tallest... but of course it doesn't need to, to be a solid ride. It carries an excellent - and consistent - theme, complete with theatrical pre-show, matched with a comfortable and yet still out-of-control ride. Signature GCI. And the clear, standout highlight is that first drop, which starts tame, becomes more exciting with the airtime hill, and then totally surprises with the fast banked right-left turns. Outstanding. The slow turnaround in the back half feels a bit of a waste to me, and I would have loved for it to have been longer, but all Wicker Man really had to do was show the UK market that wood can compete with steel. And with recent reports that guest feedback has been stellar, it sure does that. Unfortunately, I can't speak of 2018's Towers with the same affection. Last Saturday was a sunny 21 degrees, and the crowd levels reflected that. A 10am - 5pm opening in these circumstances is inexcusable. There was no closing time extension, despite queues of over 60 minutes on all the coasters, all day. Smiler hit 100 minutes, Wicker 150. The crowd I was with had never been to Alton before, so we took the early call to invest in Gold Fastrack (at £60 each) to enable us to actually ride all the big rides in this shorter time frame. And even with the Fastrack, we found it more than a little stressful to get round the park in one day (ride breakdowns didn't help - and Rita eluded us altogether). Not only that, but operations in places were abysmal. Oblivion was on one train loading, with just 3 platform staff; throughput can't have been more than 300 per hour. Galactica's queue was crawling (with the VR payoff far from a good enough justification). Congo River Rapids was closed all day. And with no Sub Terra, no Ripsaw, no Charlie, no Submission, and no Flume - not to mention the closed stalls & eateries - you can't help walk around the place wondering where all the magic has gone. Depressing stuff.

Wicker Man. I think it’s fair to say that I had very mixed feelings during the construction and build-up process for this ride. Whilst I was happy to see a new wooden coaster finally grace the UK line-up, I had reservations about how good it would be; there weren’t any huge drops in the layout, so would it pick up enough speed to be thrilling? On approaching the ride, the excitement builds from the moment you see the hugely impressive Wicker Man structure and entrance signage come into view with the music droning in the background. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing – it’s such a compelling sight, nothing looks out of place and everything just ‘works’. Moving into the queue-line, the design is fantastic with so many vantage points for the ride – small items of theming are expertly placed creating brilliant photo opportunities. Throughout queuing there are many good places to watch the coaster from, and it’s so pleasing to see that everyone seems to be enjoying it. I really like how the smoke effect is pulled around the corner by the train after exiting the second tunnel, in particular. Being surrounded by the roar of a wooden coaster combined with the soundtrack, theming and screams of joy is really something quite special. Onto the preshow, I enjoyed this and found it delivers a lot in a short space of time. The transition is clever and the show lasts just long enough to stay interesting whilst not becoming a burden after a few rides. I found the theatrics and changes in atmosphere particularly impressive, however it was a shame on one of the rides I had that the automatic doors at the back of the room kept opening. Exiting into the station, the lighting and dispatch/unload audio keeps the theme consistent and is very impressive. With the thematic elements done to a very high standard, how well would the coaster itself hold up? After five rides on two separate occasions, I absolutely love it. Dispatching out of the station, the pre-lift section is very Nemesis Inferno-esque (with the mist-filled tunnel) and sets the scene for the ride very well. Ascending the lift hill, the views of the ride are excellent and the audio helps to build anticipation throughout. The first corner and drop help to build up the speed, and the tunnel adds a level of disorientation, as you exit already facing the ground. The section that follows is truly sublime; after going over the second hill in the tunnel, you emerge blinded from the light to be thrown (yes, THROWN) first to the right, then to the left and into a ground-hugging turn. This is my absolute favourite section of the ride; the forces are much better than I expected and the transition from right-to-left is just so much fun. Diving through the Wicker Man structure and up into the turnaround, this offers a nice view of the queue-line and theming structure before hitting the two small bumps (which are much better than they look!) and then plunging to the right through the structure into yet another fantastic and unexpected sideways-banked drop. I found that the flat corner goes a long way to making the ride feel longer, as it gives you time to process the elements you’ve been through before heading into the next section. The straight drop which follows provides a nice feeling of weightlessness, however on the back row at the end of a rainy day there was some incredible airtime there! Following this is a sharp right-hand-turn through the structure, before turning left under the lift-hill and into the brake run leaving the clank of the lift chain ringing in your ears. After some time to think it through, I can say in full confidence that Wicker Man is genuinely one of the best roller coasters I have ever ridden. Firstly, it’s the first time Alton have delivered a fully complete theme under Merlin, with no obvious corners cut and nothing looks out of place. I could nit-pick, but it's the best we've had in the UK for years - so I won't. The coaster itself is great fun and is a superb example of a wooden coaster. Combined, it’s a masterpiece. My only concerns going forward are the reliability issues the ride is currently having, and maintenance of effects. The fire, smoke and audio add a lot to the overall experience, and with the fire already broken, I only hope that Alton can manage to maintain them to a high standard. Thanks for reading, a few more photos below. Wicker Man = AMAZING.

YAS! I have never seen a UK ride receive this much love and excitement for since well, Nemesis. It's an absolute pleasure to ride and it to me is the single most important ride built this century. (hyperbole necessary). I'm so glad it comes across as so middle of the road because when you get off the thing, you're blown away by how good it is and Alton fully deserve the praise. And here's what bugs me. Wicker Man is excellent but it cannot paper the cracks of poor decision making. On a hot day the park should never close at 5. Oblivion only runs two stations on absolute peak days, thats crazy. Wicker Man is clearly having a big effect on the park, more people are visiting and therefore the park should be reacting quicker to this stuff. Galatica is a mess. The quicker the VR goes the better. The sad thing is Saturday was a travesty but I went on Monday and at one point WickerMan only had a 5 minute queue, was running three trains all day and had no breakdowns. Thats the kind of guest experience the park should be delivering every day and a 4/5pm close to me seems no longer warranted or excused.

Whilst watching Jack Silkstones video and researching into it. FOOBAR RIGS is an anagram for FIGARO BROS on the big top. So that account is very clever... Just worked it out ?

When a great coaster is rethemed with "Dedicated" VR, which proves to be so popular it's taken off half the ride cars and dispatched half empty and still manages to stack with two stations. If the staff in there were any more laid back, they'd fall over.

I know most here would be well aware of that, but thanks for saying it nonetheless. With ASD, most of the time you really can't tell from the outside and the amount of dirty looks I'll get sometimes are ridiculous. Couple of times people have said stuff, too, one guy at Chessington tried to get a refund for his fastrack because I got the RAP without paying money. You'd think grown adults would realise this but maybe not. Regarding changes to the RAP system, I don't really know what they could do. In fairness the waits have been alot shorter at Chessie lately, I haven't seen Vampire out in Trail for a while now, and Fury barely ever has a queue now.

Typically for most ‘Coaster type rides’ in Merlin parks, RAP users will normally be positioned at the back row or last two rows (subject to the size of the group and train). Normally it will just be one group or wristband per train (subject to the user’s severities). Unfortunately sonething does not seem to be adding with Merlin’s use of the RAP system, as the queues and way they are managed seem to be rathe out of hand or late. Too often, there are cases of the RAP queue overflowing on busy days, where it reaches a point where users may wait around 30 minutes to ride or the RAP allocation has to be increased until the queue drops down. This is a lose-lose situation because it means some RAP users will become uncomftable (especially if they hate quieting) and/or main queue users will complain about the allocation. The staff receive regular abuse as a result of this. There definitely needs to be revised system for this, because the current one does not seem to work. Somehow a system which means that only those who require additional needs or cannot queue in any circumstances. Unfortunately there is no easy path and no matter which way they go about this, there always be angry voices complaining, which is not massively surprising. I don’t think this is a one size fits all situation. I should point out, not all disabilities are visual and the amount of people who use wheelchairs (or other forms of mobility support) are lower than you think. Too often in society, non wheelchair users ( who have a disability) get looked upon negatively if they park in a disabled parking space.