MattyMoo

Towers isn't exactly heaving "off peak" - looking at today for example, the longest queue I've seen is 20 mins (good old Galactica) with everything else being 0 mins - 15 mins. Right now on the "Family" side of rides at Towers, 19 out of 21 rides have a 0 minute queue. That's a lot of staff doing not a lot - as said above, Merlin can probably cope with that better than a one off attraction could do.

Double post to say - "real" flame effects were off when we visited, everything else was working as it should. There was a bit of a wait for the train to move back into the station as we were stacked behind another both times, but I'm sure this will improve over time

Thanks! Oooh interesting (and also half arsed of Thorpe at the same time!) Maybe the SAW IP is finally going?

Anyone have any photos of that symbol at Fright Nights? New on me....

Got to ride Wickerman on Friday at Towers - I was very concerned we weren't going to get on after travelling 200 miles to get to Towers - but, fair play to Merlin, as despite being down from 1.30 ish, they re-opened at 3.45 with officially 15 minutes of queue-open time remaining - and then stayed open until 4.45pm. In the morning - the ride didn't open until AFTER ERT (oops) and the queues in the morning were peaking at 60-80 minutes so we decided to wait until the afternoon and do the 0 minute queue rides instead, which nearly ended in our downfall Anyway - have to say that I think Merlin are on to a winner with Wickerman here. The queueline is the best I've been in some time in terms of setting you up for the ride, the Wickerman statue looks awesome, and the coaster as a whole is stunning. It really does roar round <3 The pre-show was spot on and sets the scene perfectly. The ride itself I loved (got to ride twice!) - screamed and laughed around the track, fantastic stuff - you can really feel it slide into the corners and it's pretty relentless, and picks up decent speed - it's pitched perfectly if you ask me, a properly fun and thrilling ride, that looks incredible and rides just as well. Great attraction to the lineup, and glad it's come to fruition as I wonder if it was close to getting shelved due to the Smiler accident. Well done Towers - now just fingers crossed the Wickerman starts behaving itself and has less down-time.

15/10 on the justice scale.

Incredible. Is this the same member of staff responsible for #BetterThanNothingGate?

I messaged Alton Towers about this and they said that marked up merchandise was better than nothing

That's good to know anyway - going all that way for 10-4 opening with some rides opening at 11am or midday seems a bit of a joke.

Apparently XNWOTWD was down all day yesterday? The website ticker says Opens Saturday, but that could be an old message...

We're going on Friday 20th April - I find it somewhat ridiculous that Towers still haven't put online the opening hours for that day as yet, but I'm guessing it's going to be a 10-4, sigh. EDIT: They've just gone online, 10-4 it is then....

"You'd never even recognize that it used to be X" I'd beg to differ m8. EDIT: Sir Sanbrooke Esq. speaks the truth lads. He rates it a 5/10 (not a 15/10) and says "You could still tell it was X basically"

This 100%. If the PR machine goes into super HYPE mode, and the reality is something very different and the public are disappointed, then that's no-one's fault other than Merlin's.

@BaronC. Did you charge your phone after the ride? Seemed like a lot of "VIPs" in the queue last night - I understand DBGTROTD broke down last night too, for a change

Hurrah Hope that motorbike is screwed down properly - that looks far too easily accessible for people to mess about with!

Incredible...

@Mer Ah that's good Although the staff member didn't even spot my headset wasn't on and had already given the thumbs up (as I was still trying to find a space where there was a spare working headset)

Agree with Mer's post above. My headset on parts 1 and 2 was working fine - however - the problem I always have is having to hold the flippin' thing on your head otherwise it slips down! Maybe you can adjust the straps but time always seems to be of the essence and I'm just happy to have a headset that actually works. Does kill the vibe a bit with attendants saying "Headsets in bags don't work" I did get touched during the VR... would say that the second bit of VR is vastly improved with extra bits now, and both sets of VR do work well (even with having to hold the headset on your head). Think I preferred the original "middle section" to be honest (currently) as the "maze" was just a bit odd - maybe they'll tweak the new middle section but it just felt a bit naff, and the projection was particularly poor. The fake shop ending works well - but agree, was quite funny seeing the Demon just left stuck there at the end Was trying to work out what was in the closed off part of the queue - it was the part where your head is photo'd and you lean on a rest, assume this was for the 3D jars that never really worked - or actually never worked at all?! So in the queue, that bit is shut off (1st photo point still operational) and the luggage hold is now shut off too. The less said of the state of the posters in the queue line, the better - there's literally nothing of them left now So yes - DBGTROTD2 is good - it's definitely better than 2016 and 2017, so the ride should be finished sometime in 2020.

It may be a legit concept and exist but it won't even feature on the ride when it opens. I think Thorpe Park just think up a headline then make up the story behind it afterwards. Laughable really. Shame because I thought it looked pretty decent from the entrance facade and watchtower when on park on Saturday - like Josh said, if they actually just sold the ride on it's real life strengths and qualities, instead of these dodgy "fake news" stories, I'd have more respect from them and be more bothered. 15/10 on the nonsense scale.

IT DOES NOT EXIST AND WILL NOT EXIST IT IS ALL MADE UP.

Utter utter rubbish and hyperbole. It defies logic that people read and believe this rubbish. Spoiler alert - you will never see these devices in the carriages.

Saw wasn't running well on Saturday - the queue moved very slowly, and there was no-one batching at the Fasttrack/Main Queue merge point at bag drop so it was a bit of a free for all. Saw a number of trains going out with empty seats which shouldn't really happen - let alone when there's a 60 minute queue. The spinning blades are back though!

After a brief period of downtime on Saturday, Stealth was back up and running two trains like a dream - fair play to the ride team as they were always dispatching in the 40 second window, and the queue was moving quickly. There's a 2 second gap between "go go go!" and the green lights currently but I can forgive that for now. For all you fans out there, the two trains running are No. 2 and No. 3 #truefacts

A lot of the food outlets are now Card Only - which is fine as long as the card machines are up to the job. Felt for the poor chap on Peckish, not only were most of the menu items not on his till, his Chip & Pin machine had sticky/faulty buttons, so when trying to enter £17.00, the zero was getting stuck and entering £17,000.00 for example - so he had to keep manually resetting it.

The timbers/cladding in the Swarm station roof have been removed, so you can currently see the shiny steel RSJs underneath... as I understand it, some of the wood was rotten and needed replacing. Hopefully it's a quick job, but currently - it looks a bit rubbish Had a smooth awesome ride on Swarm on Saturday but unfortunately all the effects and Swarm Island audio were off