SteveJ

There's high demand for the theme park and thereby the hotels, as many frills they attach people will still come for the theme park. Yet the theme park is (more slowly than the others in UK) falling into a dire state yet prices to stay over will be getting higher and higher. I wish people would take a fresh look at the whole visitor package and see what guests see, rather than just do what stats, economical models and surveys tell them to and even then always taking the easiest option.

Why would there be more accommodation other than the hundreds of good B&Bs and self-caterings in the surrounding area? The only reason large amounts of people would want to stay there in the area is for Alton Towers. Towers aren't building a third hotel to fill a gap in hotel supply, they're doing it to increase demand in their brand.

Sounds about right. Those 10ish years ago being when there was a very similar climate of money and stats first, quality... shelved indefinitely. Can't just go for a third hotel and take the risk though, got to test the waters first with more readily promotional Enchanted Village. I hope whoever this project has been delegated to turns it into somewhere genuinely nice to stay in. A new hotel should offer more than just a different set of colours and price tier. To be fair to the park Alton Towers are usually try to do their best with this.

I'm sure there's demand at Alton Towers but soon thousands of guests will be staying at high prices to visit a rope course and a neglected theme park where the decoration is a naked shop mannequin and a falling apart fibreglass alien. Alton Towers is huge and has a head start on quality of experience because of its past. But all the other parks are already very tight for capacity, especially Chess which already had a new hotel open just last year on a sought-after brown field site. The Towers hotel will probably be formulaic underneath so that it can be cheaply/quickly built and then cloned under various themes for the other parks (like the Enchanted village)

The park want to eliminate elevated queues since the 2012 accident. Same happened with Runaway Train's queue and will eventually with Tomb's

Mystery is not coming back apparently because they thought it was too much work to reinstall. The new one is going in the events marquee.

Hasn't been open since the smiler accident. Fury is down again now for an unrelated reason

Yes they are and most the work has been done I believe, should be reopened for August busy period?

I will try to find the audio tapes because I'm analogue geeky like that. Can't imagine people discussing different mixes of the Wild Asia or Call to adventure themes now can you?! Graham Smart was amazing

To me Graham's sounds different throughout to the YouTube/cassette version. Interestingly I do have the old exterior track (an edit of the Graham version with loads of added SFX) that cuts out all the choral/synth passages - maybe it was this looped edit that played in the station? I sometimes do audio production and pretty sure I would hear an edit between two different mixes spliced together. I know which point you mean but I thought it sounded more like a clumsy organ overdub to me (though you might be right because it pans left awkwardly). The famous riff is mixed exactly the same at the beginning an end, so I don't think it's two different halves stuck together. So Graham might have edited it in just the middle if he'd lost his multitracks. Anyway Graham's version takes me back to my first ride on Vampire straight away, it's exactly the tone I remember and I used to love that track in the station. Guess that's why I care about the right one being played, so other kids can have that same 'moment' when they walk in the station and it surrounds you. Exactly the same with BubbleWorks. The sound systems were also better in both rides so you could hear it fully, didn't sound like a tinny cacophony and was super ballsy.

Are you sure? I'm sure it's the right mix, perhaps the ride version is an edit of that mix. Additional SFX were also added to the station track at some point by Tussauds. If anyone's interested, some of the differences between the cassette and ride mixes are.. different tolling bell rings Different synths Electric guitar and organ mixed differently Different 'thunder' SFX The ride version is also mixed to loop. What they use now doesn't loop as well if you listen out

Where, on YouTube? That's the cassette mix there, the most it misses is of the fairground music. On the ride now it just plays a loop of about 10 seconds (each track should be 1 minute). The master audio tapes are still around so the full thing isn't lost It was the same with he Vampire music, for years what was posted online was actually a completely different cassette mix until composer Graham Smart posted the ride version himself. Ironically it is now the cassette mix, downloaded off YouTube, that is used in Vampire now

The full music tracks have never been available online, what is usually online is a cassette mix that was probably released commercially in the old shop. It misses out some of the music and isn't full quality. They currently use shorter edits of this downloadable cassette mix on the ride because the old tracks were lost I think the 1990 digital sound system is still in use but probably with multiple post hoc alterations. The old system was designed to seemlessly loop and sync each track - as you'll know it doesn't do that anymore!

Yes.

Well you wouldn't just fall through, it's a solid floor in that area

Pretty standard signs you get in most theme parks everywhere. Sonic and Fury had ridiculously low fences when they opened, not surprised it has been raised now. Though it looks funny.

As far as I know the Tomb building itself is fine, it's certainly built to last so is structurally sound. It's just that it's not functional as an operational building, think along the lines of ventilation, inspection, cleaning, access. It needs new infrastructure throughout and it's been said since 1987 how difficult it is to manage.

It's nothing to do with how many people ride it or whether the guns/effects work or not, it's just plain old and the building needs modifications. Since Chessington opened its a notoriously difficult building to manage.

Most the park management don't know the character Abdab exists so it probably won't be.

The papers just want you to share and distribute their articles and that includes signing up a petition about them (internet petitions don't actually do anything anyway and just gives them more attention). The more outlandish, deliberately silly and negative articles there are, the more people will pay attention to them. It's just about money and attention, I highly doubt the people writing them even care about theme park safety at all. And if people choose to believe these stories then that's their loss, not Alton Towers' as millions of people will still go to the park anyway.

It won't lead to the death of Alton Towers. What needs to stop is people even caring about gossip sites and tabloids. No one gives a damn about them really, it's just conversation fodder. Yes the park's reputation is damaged but nothing the papers can say now will be anything on the crash that already happened. Why are new articles even being posted?

It's clearly shot in Tomb, look at the polystyrene breakage on one of the stone props. Maybe that has something to do with it.

All the sets from Terror Tomb and most animations (except for the advanced animatronics that were removed) are still there now. With Tomb Blaster they got the same studio that made Terror Tomb to build the giant cobra and hired a composer to produce new music. That was pretty much it. I *think* parts of the awesome rock guitarist were cannibalised into the slow moving, dorky mummy with a laser that you meet in the spike room. A whole lot more was removed in the redesign than what was added.

Terror Tomb was amazing, one of the most cinematic dark rides around. Such a shame the budget was cut hugely during construction meaning some fantastic ideas were compromised, then its great animatronics weren't so well maintained and so 'dated' quickly.

The intro and outro tracks were swapped during a redesign of the ride.