Ricky

Vampires thrilling? I think of it more of a back crippler

Like I said earlier, this is the maintenance position for all top spins. This allows for easy access to the centre motors, gearboxes and loads of other things including what was also described by Rich earlier, as the hydraulic oil pipes. Most likely, it was just being changed/filtered, or maybe its doing an Enterprise and having a hydraulic leak

Just a shame that Thorpe don't really have the space for a wooden coaster really, it would only be able to be an out and back either toward the farm or toward Canada creek to be any decent size!

That's just the position is has for maintenance, didn't know it was down to be honest! It's had a very rough time this year and the last!

Wasn't Enterprise just a mixture between the old Zodiac parts with old Enterprise parts with the occasional new parts from Huss?

As if with all our ERT it's whoever gets on the train first, then some people will get off and be replaced/move seats etc. So everyone gets a fair deal with the ERT.

To be fair I have this dispute with Air, people saying for instance the barrel roll on it is an inversion when you clearly do not go upside down! My theory, you are essentially laying down in air and you do a 360 degree turn. If air's barrel roll (as well as lie to fly etc) counts as an inversion then that must mean when I'm laying on my bed and turn over I have done an inversion yes? To me an inversion is where your feet are sky high and your head is down low.

I think some people are misinterpreting the new theme. X, is no longer a coaster where you are meant to feel disorientated/ not knowing where you are going. The ride now is suited for young children, which straight away says 'this is a straight forward ride'. Could you imagine a 6 year old being disoriented? The whole point of it is 'Ride On A Wave Of Light And Sound' - there is a lot of light and a lot of sound. So, to sum it up, X is a ride where you are riding on waves of light and sound, so disorientation is not the key factor anymore. But instead the key factor is to produce a phenomenal light show with loud pumping music. It is to my understanding the light show is approximately 15-20 minutes long with a long 70 something minute track. If anyone is interested the light show has been updated recently and the lasers are now multicoloured

^ there's nothing wrong with the chain, it's the gear box.

They can't really help needing to import a part, sometimes a ride seems unreliable but infant is awaiting a special part which cannot be kept in the engineering stock cupboard.

Feel quite privileged to be one of the last guest to ride it before it died, was on the transfer track when it did! Shame though, one of my favourite rides and always start the day with it so when it died on the first day we didn't get to go on it on the second

I'd love the chance cards "you've given into hunger, pay £15 for a hot dog" "You've been found queue jumping, move forward to GO and collect £200" "You've been seen having a good time, pay £70 for fastrack"

All rides where on two trains yesterday, but saw was on 7

No doubt it will be covered in scaffolding, striped and mostly removed out of park hours! If its going of course, Shame, not been on it in years!

I never liked carnival of screams, not sure why! Love terror of the towers, easily the best maze I've been in... Which only extends from Thorpe to Alton!

Woah, they stayed open long, they've only been open a week

I love the bit in the interview with the girl ''After about 15 minutes we knew something wasn't right" - You don't say!

Well, I'm pretty sure everyone who was in the queue at the time must of been there the day before as well, a lot of people had accepted the fact it wasn't going to open, as that is what was advertised! Even I did a cheeky cheer

I'm really confused your talking about the best ride at Thorpe, yet your saying its gone down your list because of The Smiler? Last I checked neither where in the same park!

That must be awkward, that's whatnots all about! Although, Detonator scares me, and if it was a softer drop I would go on it

I had this dispute all too many times, the operator should be able to do from the control box rather than poncing about waiting for someone else to do it!

Just so you know before you all jump on the ride staff for being incompetent. Queue times are regulated every 30 minutes or so to Control Operations which manually change the time. A lot of the time Control are busy doing things for every department in and around the park and don't have time to update the queue boards. If you want to blame anyone it's Operations Control.

I too found this quite amusing! I feel sorry for the people that had to wait around 4 hours to get off though....

They just had an interview on Sky News and they said restraints had to be cut through to get them out! This may even be the end of current Ramesis! It's old they should buy a newer version

Okay, so I know I ripped into towers for buying a cheap ride that had the worst construction I've ever seen. I travelled to Alton Towers on Wednesday to spend Thursday & Friday on park. We had a normal, "The Smiler will open around lunchtime. Didn't want to wait around for it so decided it was best to do the other attractions around park starting with Oblivion, we got stuck on it on station approach and to my understanding hasn't reopened since. Flying start to the day with sonic, smiler, oblivion & enterprise closed. Got to about 1pm and took another gander to X sector to find everything but submission closed. Thought nothing of it at the time and decided to leave it another couple of hours. Unfortunately it didn't open at all which I was rather annoyed about, but these things happen not a lot many people can do. Was disappointed by 3pm most of the park was closed including Oblivion, Smiler & Air. Day 2 Got to the entrance to find the huge "a million apologies, but The Smiler will be in available today". Was relatively angry by this and was ready to call it day after 3 hours on park! However when we went to ride Th13teen we saw Rich & Rob who conveyed a message that The Smiler may be opening mid afternoon. I was generally excited that there was a chance that the ride could open, so after a quick ride on Hex we decided to conveniently have lunch at the Fried Chicken Co. the chicken was okay, but the chips weren't cooked which was a massive shame as the lady who served me was one of the nicest members of staff I've ever encountered at Alton. We sat outside and it was very quiet as most of the staff didn't know that the ride may open, it seemed as many where still claiming the ride is very unlikely to open, whilst in the background we couldn't help noticing two trains where transferred onto the track with the water dummies being filled up. I was actually teeming with joy upon seeing this as I hadn't previously seen the ride move, by this point I didn't care if it didn't open! We were wondering around the toilets when we saw movement in the station, moments later the first lift started moving. Next thing we know we were stood near the entrance hoping it didn't stall after a good 45/50 minutes the ride opened and within 10 minutes the queue was registered at 150 minutes. I must say after all the pessimistic views I've given in the last 6 months, I wasn't expecting anymore than a longer version of SAW, how very wrong I was indeed. The queue, even though it was the biggest cattle pen I've EVER seen, was phenomenal, with every step giving a fantastic view. We waited about 30 minutes to get on the ride. With no knowledge if the ride I was pleasantly surprised by an indoor experience. The atmosphere when the first train was sent was brilliant, everyone in the queue was cheering and everyone was so excited! The ride itself took my breath away, never would of expected to be smiling so much throughout a ride and to be only half way through and feeling dizzy and weak at the knees I was very ecstatic about riding it. The second section was just as good a nice speed with a lot of positive and negative G's. however the issue I had was the exit of the cobra roll, the transition is so tight as is taken as such speed that you do smack your head several times, but unlike saw didn't give you a headache. So overall, hats off to Alton, I was VERY surprised with the ride and thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish, cannot wait to ride it again! I love the fact that everyone is 'smiling' from start to finish and then afterwards!