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I concur with Coaster above, today really was brilliant! For a preview day, I gotta give credit to the park here as I was honestly surprised by how well things were being run and the availability of the attractions for guests, especially when Stealth unexpectedly opened in the early afternoon. I'd go as far as to say this has been one of the best preview events the park has held yet. All coasters minus WD were running full capacity, including Colossus on two trains and Tidal Wave on two boats which is something rarely seen these days! The staff running the coasters were on fire too with frequent and fast dispatch times. No messing around or delays this visit anywhere across any ride. Staff were friendly and cooperative when DBGT broke down and all of them seem enthused, which is a promising start to the season. Probably the most surprising thing for me was walking into a park where every minute between 10am - 5pm, the coasters did not remove any trains on their circuits due to small queues later in the day, which has become a terrible habit of this park lately. Instead, by 4pm, I was riding a train on Colossus with only 6 guests and loads of empty ones. Same for Inferno too. This is what I like to see! As for the changes and things I noticed across the park, there are some questionable cosmetic changes made inside the dome I really don't think highly of, especially given it's just black walls everywhere now and PVC posters in front of the store instead of a glass display window as an example. It looks so incredibly dull in there without the old theming anymore and no massive widescreen projector will ever excuse the decision to do this. Also, there were some areas of the park which clearly weren't looked over properly during the winter, as the LED lighting rigs from Fright Nights are still standing next to Tidal Wave, Loggers Leap and IAC. Why are they still standing? It looks really lazy. Colossus in-person looks awful with the land filled in under the vertical loop. They could have at least turfed the ground with some grass or plants couldn't they? Least the original audio was back on it today which was great to hear! It honestly suits the coaster so much better than the IMAscore version. Swarm's station was also quite bad, as whilst they painted the steel supports after removing all the cladding surrounding them, they didn't paint the footers right down to the ground and as a result, bare silver metal is still visible near the floor on all the supports. It looks really bad and like a botch job. But most of all, my biggest concern about what I saw from today was a seriously worrying lack of upkeep with their audio and SFX, because it was incredibly inconsistent in some areas and many effects have not been fixed since the end of last season. This is something I have noticed Chessington and Alton Towers are also suffering from currently so it's not unique just to Thorpe. Here is a long list of every little observation I made from today for each ride. Used spoiler tags to keep this post from getting too long:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, early reviews for the Alton Towers Dungeons are positive. Very much seems to be the case that it's the same quality of all other Dunegons, just a smaller version. Good to hear, but this still doesn't answer any of concerns about whether this is right for the park. Indeed, regardless of the quality, an upcharge actor-led experience which is a lite version of an attraction which can be found in 5 other locations across the country still feels totally wrong.

Having now done all the UK dungeon attractions aswell as Amsterdam and being somebody who is actually quite a big fan of the dungeons, I can quite categorically say that this is easily the worst of the dungeons by a mile. First off I will start with the positives and say the acting quality was strong as was the final scene with the haunting. HOWEVER and without given much away,I find the amount of black walls and blank corridors between the scenes to be absolutely horrendous. Half the joy of the other dungeons in the UK (which gentle reminder, premium pass holders get FOR FREE!!) is the level of detail and immersion that guests get. This dungeon however I can honestly say that when it comes to detail, it makes Charlie and the chocolate factory look like Pirates of the carribean and I am not even close to joking. In terms of the whole “it’s not finished” malarkey I have heard, well if it’s not finished then don’t have the cheek to open it unfinished and then have the nerve to charge extra for what frankly is a very half heartedly executed experience. Again I reiterate that there ARE positives with the acting ability on display as well as the finale. However that does not save an otherwise lacklustre and needless addition to Alton Towers. Honestly I know I could say “it’s better than nothing”, but in this instance I genuinely think I would prefer literally nothing.

Done it. It's awful. Review later.

Today was very good. All the coasters were running multiple trains, the park was quiet and whilst there were some breakdowns/rides closed, for a preview day it seemed very well organised and everything that was open ran like clockwork. Also it was great that Stealth opened! I mean sure, I still don't like a lot of what Thorpe is doing, but it's fantastic that they were able to have every coaster open and running more than one train on the first day of being open to guests, and that they limited numbers rather than over-filling the park. Much better than opening to 10,000 people when you're nowhere near ready. I'm really not a fan of some of the cosmetic changes, the dome looks soulless now compared to how it looked before, the removal of Tidal's bridge is a shame as is Colossus' concrete (though I appreciate the reasons for this). Only real annoyance from an operations perspective was that Derren Brown's Ghost Train had closed with the shop shutters down by 4:40.

Hope those who went today had a fantastic time! It is one week until the meet, 10am in the Dome! Not too late to join, let me know if you still wish to attend!

Agree, looks a little soulless and bland. Hopefully they've got more planned before the park fully opens, and the next stage of refurb is worth it!

It was optional via a seperate queue last year, just cost to much for extra staff running costs and slowing everything else down