Coaster

ALTON TOWERS - Wednesday 30th & Thursday 31st October and Friday 1st November.

DAY ONE
We arrived at the park before half nine expecting a busy but well handled day. I had heard horror stories about their operations this year, and I know how badly the park is run sometimes but hoped that at their peak time they would make an effort.
I was very much wrong.

We queued up for the monorail, which was moving at a snails pace. Half an hour later, it was announced down the PA that they were only running two trains! This was frankly ridiculous and I can not see how they are allowed to get away with this on such a busy day.

After arriving in the park it was well past 10am so we headed to Th13teen instead of The Smiler.
On arrival to Dark Forest, we noticed that Rita was closed with a huge queue of people waiting for it to open.
Pushing past this (under the awful scaffolding), we walked over to Th13teen to see that the queueline was being evacuated as that was also closed!

After this we headed to the X-Sector to ride The Smiler. After a quick(ish) ride on Oblivion, we joined the 140 minute queue.
The theme music, which sounds effective from the top of the area, was playing very loudly down in the queueline and most of the speakers were blown. Therefore it sounded awful and did it's best to ensure that we had a headache!
After 2 hours of this, it was announced that the ride was experiencing a "technical delay." Everyone in the queueline groaned, and looked more fed up than before (which was very difficult).
Another half an hour passed, and an announcement played telling us to evacuate the queueline. After 10 more minutes we got out of the queueline, and were given a priority pass for one ride that was not valid on The Smiler!

After another long walk to Katanga Canyon, we did the rapids and had lunch at the pizza buffet. On entering the pizza buffet it was almost 2pm, and we had only managed 2 rides!
As MAP holders we still felt ripped off - imagine paying over £40 for a ticket!!

After this the day did improve slightly. We headed over to Forbidden Valley and had a few re-rides on Nemesis (in the single rider queue, which wasn't managed that well).

I can't remember how the next few hours went, but we went on Hex and a few other rides.
By this time it was dark and we were very hacked off - after travelling 3 hours to visit the park they give us this?
We headed to guest services and told them how disappointed we were, and they allowed us to use the priority pass on The Smiler.
We headed back to the area and got in the (very long) fastrack queue. After about 20 minutes the ride had another technical delay! We waited, and after about half an hour it re-opened and we finally got a ride!

The ride itself is very good (in my opinion), and I can't understand why people say it's rough. It was fairly intense in places, and was very good.

DAYS TWO AND THREE
Days two and three were much better, with us managing 7 rides on The Smiler over the two days in the single rider queue. With this said, there were still quite a few niggles:
- Lots more breakdowns on The Smiler
- Nemesis SRQ not being managed properly
(By the end of day two it was raining and the main queueline was almost empty, however we wanted to re-ride it without travelling a mile each time so went in the single rider queue. Instead of letting us all on, they closed three restraints in each row and put us on the fourth! WHY?)
- Staff were not at their best at all.
- Loads of broken effects on Duel
- Carnival of Screams was awful compared to last year (presumably because it's now free).

Thank you for reading

They need to sort out these issues. After finally getting on The Smiler I really enjoy it and it's a great ride - now sort out the issues!

Has anyone got the fright nights ride announcements?

Not a positive report here I went tonight and the queues were 90 mins plus, the selling of fast track was ridiculous as in they were no where to be seen we only did aslym cabin and bloody valentine and that took 4 hours.
No actors in any queue lines or out in the park. Was mental busy and we got fed up and went home!!
Defo going on preview night only or the first weekend next year.
What a load of tosh.

After my second visit, I'm a bit disappointed with how fast things have degraded since my first visit a couple of weeks ago...
Firstly the You're Next actors. We saw two of them stood there having a conversation in plain site, and a woman in a grey hoodie who stuck out like a sore thumb? What the hell was that all about? Had she forgotten her costume or something? I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it, had I not noticed the fact she was wearing nail varnish too. Seriously, I know I sound picky, but these actors get paid £70 a day. Do they not have even a basic level of uniform standard? If I was their supervisor this would be absolutely unacceptable. On the whole there is a real lack of professionalism surrounding all the actors if I'm honest. We saw one walking in to Saw chowing down on a hotdog, we caught 2 discussing their shifts in Cabin in the Woods, we saw the director check his phone multiple times and the assistants wig was basically falling off. This job role should be treated no differently then a stage show. Could you even fathom an actor getting his phone out while on stage?
Generally as well, presentation is annoying. MBV, why is acceptable for them to just dump left over scenery next to the entrance? It ruins the atmosphere completely and shows they don't care at all about attention to detail. Would it REALLY have been that hard to move it out of sight?
The Asylum is still just far too overcrowded. We ended up with a 3 group bottleneck, and we weren't even particularly going that slow. Not to mention the fact there were 15 people in our group as it was anyway.
Cabin in the woods...well the first run was as good as ever, although the Control room is essentially pointless now. For some reason they took out the suspended ceiling and you can now hear X's music and cars rumbling round, and if you look up you see the pyramid. The camera had been fogged over for 2 days in a row now, so you can't actually see what's happening in the room you're supposedly controlling.
The second run however was totally unacceptable. We joined the queue at about 9.30pm, and it was supposed to be around 2 hours wait time. Evidently the maze supervisor had decided she wanted to go home early, and thought it would be a great idea to clear a 2 hour queue in the space of about 30 minutes by forcing a huge stream of people in the maze at once. We walked straight through the dark corridor into the entrance, and the host was stood there forcing people to go in to the doors she decided for us. Eventually a gigantic bottleneck occurred on the ramp and chaos ensued. As we walked out, there was an actor being rushed out, bleeding. Obviously they lost all control of the maze and she got hurt as a result the supervisors poor direction. Needless to say, if I had paid for a fastrack I would be fuming.
Which brings me to my next point. Fastrack has absolutely ruined this event.
Every single Fastrack queue was overflowing. The fact that Colussus was on one train operation and still selling fastrack goes to show that they do not give a toss about keeping queues down, and only care about money. I visit enough times off peak to not care about missing out on some rides, but if this were my one and only visit and I had paid for a fastrack to get on every ride, but ended up waiting a hour to get on Saw, for example, I would be absolutely livid. We were lied to about the queue times outside of MBV. We reluctantly opted to go for a fastrack as my friend desperately wanted to go on it and were quoted a 10-15 minute wait. We waited 50 minutes. I honestly wouldn't have cared if she had told us this, I probably would've passed on the maze altogether. This is not right at all, and after guest services refused to do anything about it, really I think the next step is to talk to Trading Standards, because they are flat out lying to make money. I really do not want free priority passes or free tickets, I just want this anarchy to stop.
They really need to go back and fundamentally think of a solution to the throughput problem. When its quiet and you aren't literally being herded through the mazes like some sort of Universal attraction, they really are amazing. But considering the lack of attention to detail, they're pathetic unless the actors are given time to do their thing.
/rant over

Sounds good, I hope to enjoy this tomorrow.
What other rides were open later?

One thing really noticeable this year is the number of actors.
They have a lot more than in previous years, and the mazes are much better as a result of this
Well done Thorpe!

Hello Thorpe Park Maniacs! I'm hoping to carry out a survey that will be used as part of my psychology A-level, and you're participation would be really helpful! I'm looking into whether being in anticipation of a scary event, and after experiencing a scary event, affects how frightening your dreams are. If you wish to participate, please record how scary your dreams are on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not scary at all, 10 being like a never ending overnight Blair Witch stay with actors from the asylum!) on 1) the night before you go to Fright Nights, 2) the night you go to Fright Nights and 3)the night after you go to Fright Nights. The data I collect will be anonymous and will only be used as part of my coursework, and wont be shown anywhere else. I would be so grateful if you took the time to participate! If you find any mistakes with the survey, or any ways to improve it, please let me know that I can change it before I submit it for my coursework. Thank you so much to those who participate, and I hope everyone has a great time at Fright Nights!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VCNVMSY

Where did you find that?!
Nice to see Merlin being nice and creative if this is the case. Don't get me wrong, it's a great design, but basically copying Swarm's train is just silly...

Been dead for a while now? Any chat times coming up soon? We could do a winter wonderland discussion coming up to Christmas maybe? Just a suggestion...

Sorry didn't see haha

A throughput of just over 300 on 2 trains? That sounds dire. Though fastrack has made operations slightly better, if they're loading this slowly then they need to reassess the ride's operations.
They should really sending out at least 2 trains every 5 minutes as 1 is just ridiculous.

Got stuck at the bottom of the first lift hill for about 10 min, with 2 boats in front of us and another on the top of the lift hill. They then got the ride back up and running, so all the boats in front of us went to the next lift hill, except us, we got stuck at the top. There was 2 staff with us at the top telling us what was going on,we had to to to the next lift hill to get evacuated because you can't really jump out on that lift hill because the steps are too low. The water at this point stopped running to we had to wait till they got the water back on before we could go to the next lift hill. We were up there for about half an hour speaking to the staff at this point and everyone else had been evacuated, there was no boats behind us. An engineer came and got us down this lift hill. We then got to the second lift hill where there was a staff waiting for us, we then had to wait until they turned the water off again for us to jump out our boat because it would of rocked to much for us to get out. 5 mins after that we jumped out and walked down the old CCR track to the station where we got given free fast tracks. It was actually really fun and nice to be able speak to the staff for ages at the top, everyone was really friendly.

How the hell does a ticket only attraction have a 40 minute queue. Towers were good with that last year, it should be like ToTT!

I would probably say Nutty Jakes.
This is because I recall there being greater theming among the ride as well as a simple storyline and a more exciting atmosphere and was almost like carbon copy of something you'd find at Disney land.
However as this was over 15 years ago, my memory may not be 100% accurate.
The Brer Rabbit theme don't get me wrong is ok but for me not quite as impressive, but that's mainly due to the slightly cheesy storyline and low quality models, but it' was stilla fun ride though.
This video below, may hopefully give you an impression of what the ride once was.

^ Thanks for the TR and it's nice to hear that you enjoyed it (as it's my favourite park).
It is a bummer when you go there and the Big One's shut, but it is beyond their control (when it's due to wind). I disagree with what you say about the woodies, as I find them much more enjoyable than smooth steel coasters - but it is all down to opinion!
I agree that Wallace and Gromit is a brilliant dark ride, and yes the slippers have always been in pairs
Personally I like wristbands. I really agree with what you say about the cleanliness of the park though - it really looks superb now and a lot better than the Merlin parks.

My last theme park trip of the season! While the fireworks display itself is usually good and worth seeing, it’s the rides at night which really make the day.
I arrived just after 3.00 on a bitterly cold afternoon. There was quite a bit of traffic at the entrance to the park, although staff were manning the entrance kiosks and directing people to the car parks.
This was handled absolutely brilliantly and the traffic was moving very quickly. 10/10 to Drayton for their forward planning there!
Considering the amount of cars on park, the queues weren’t too bad at all. First up was Shockwave. I know it’s hated among enthusiasts, but I have a soft spot for it. I guess you could say it’s one of those coasters you love to hate.
After a ride on Maelstrom, it was over to Drayton’s finest. Apocalypse was pretty busy and saw queue times of 30 minutes for the sit down element, yet this side offered the best views of the park at night.




It was nearing 7.00 now, so I did Shockwave twice, before taking a place down by the lake for the fireworks. The fireworks weren’t bad, but nowhere near as good as last year. There wasn’t a big finale, nor lasers and other effects. Still, the fireballs across the lake were pretty cool.



The rest of the evening was spent whoring Apocalypse.

Random pictures





To sum up - there’s something pretty magical about Drayton Manor at night. You could almost be forgiven for thinking you’re at an amusement park, yet there’s still that theme park atmosphere. Drayton really do need to stage a large Halloween event, with rides open till 9.00 pm during October. There so much potential.
Ride count:
Shockwave x4
G Force x1
Apocalypse x10
Maelstrom x1
Thanks for reading!

Must have been a different instance - in my case a group of chavs were hammering on the doors, then swore at the actor when he (rightly so) told them off.
They should have just been sent out of the queue - much like a lot of the instances.
Smokers in the queue, people trying to mug a woman and people in fights should all be ejected from the park.
Security are useless, and the ride staff even worse. It's always "don't do it again..."

Thats the big thing overcoming the fear of doing your first maze.

Security on park are NOT strict enough.
The idiots on park today were so horrendous it really did make it hard to enjoy the day at all.

We witnessed:
- A woman almost being mugged by a group of t***s running past (they didn't manage it as we asked her if she was alright afterwards).
- A serious fight outside the arena
- Idiots smacking the walls in the MBV queue, causing the actor in the first room to have to come out and shout at them (should have just kicked them out).
- Tons of queueline smokers (NOT ONCE did I see a member of staff tell them off).
- People having DRY SEX in a corner outside the (closed) Ben and Jerry's kiosk
- I'm sure there were a few drunk people at the end of the night
- General threatening, abusive behaviour around the park and in the queues.

It was absolutely horrible, and the staff/security are not strict enough at all! Really ruined our day, and I shall be getting in contact with Thorpe tomorrow.

Security on park are NOT strict enough.
The idiots on park today were so horrendous it really did make it hard to enjoy the day at all.

We witnessed:
- A woman almost being mugged by a group of t***s running past (they didn't manage it as we asked her if she was alright afterwards).
- A serious fight outside the arena
- Idiots smacking the walls in the MBV queue, causing the actor in the first room to have to come out and shout at them (should have just kicked them out).
- Tons of queueline smokers (NOT ONCE did I see a member of staff tell them off).
- People having DRY SEX in a corner outside the (closed) Ben and Jerry's kiosk
- I'm sure there were a few drunk people at the end of the night
- General threatening, abusive behaviour around the park and in the queues.

It was absolutely horrible, and the staff/security are not strict enough at all! Really ruined our day, and I shall be getting in contact with Thorpe tomorrow.

Ride staff have full discretion to remove anyone from queues, whether they're queue jumping, smoking, or causing any general issues. Same with refusing people on rides.
It's a "can't be arsed" attitude which leads to things not being done, not that they have no power. If they genuinely want to kick people out, they're able to do so.

It really annoys meaning Thorpe's Facebook page and general with the amount of people complaining about how the Asylum is offensive towards people with mental health conditions, when the attraction is completely fictitious and is based on no real people or characters and just uses deadly actors that scare people.
The amount of people protesting worries me about the maze's future that how one if their better mazes may have to close just because of selfish, obnoxious OTT people.

Looks like this is now resolved. Not ideal really is it on a day as busy as today.
The usual hilarious pictures of the guest services queue are beginning to appear on Facebook!
What is their problem with power cuts? I swear they shouldn't happen as much as they do.