EC!

Its annoying knowing I have to wait for Smiler in dark for another like 10/11 months oh well atleast, Blivvy, sonic, Nemesis, rumba and Rita were done in the dark on my trip and that isnt bad!

Nobody knows until people ride it.

Ahh exciting, I'm I right in saying these are 6 row trains?

They have closed it because they brought that massive crane out so it would be having that lay about and people climb up or hurt themselves, you know what some people are like these days!

Just came back from towers, was closed all day, I did see work on the vertical lift hill which I suppose is a good thing!

I'm going tomorrow so I asked alton if it would be open and this is the response I got: Hi Ethan, The Smiler is expected to operate as normal tomorrow although we cannot promise anything at this stage. ^Viki Fingers crossed!

Photo from Alton Towers Guide facebook page! If its bearings from the trains then I can see it opening later today, if its from the lift hill motor (if that has bearings) then it probably won't open for the rest of the season.

You would have thought that they would of built it abit closer to a city or something lol

Second launch is in place! photo from http://projekthelix.se/launch-2-I-luften/

With the Hyde park winterwonderland, does anybody roughly know what the prices of the rides will be?

I don't think many do I'm living in Cardiff and its still a 1hr 40min drive for me!

Rufus hound (front right) on Speed! he seems quite happy with it from the Oakwood facebook page.

I sort of do well, I'm learning it

I saw a video of that to because I wasn't sure what it was but it looks AWESOME, love rides like that, they are always a hoot!

This is one way to celebrate the first riders ever on Abyss, seemed like a great press event too!

They can't keep on trying to fix this can they, I bet hundreds of thousands of pounds or maybe even more have been spent to keep this ride open for it to kill it self mid season twice! Its a great ride but I don't think there is much point keeping it much longer it would cost them as a park too much I guess.

Nice! I look forward to this in december, I'm most looking forward to Air tbh! its going to be great!! (1000th post whoop whoop!)

ooooh thats bad hope the kid makes a good recovery!

I thought from the video it looked better then vampire and had some nice speed to it as well, ah well maybe they will make the path a bit more entising next year

Kings Island have confirmed that Flight Deck for next year will be rethemed to the iconic THE BAT! from their facebook page: Thirty-three years to the day it was first introduced in 1980, The Bat will fly again at Kings Island. The park is changing the name and colors of the Flight Deck roller coaster to The Bat. The change will take effect for the 2014 season. The new color scheme for The Bat will feature orange track with two shades of charcoal for the columns and structure. Black will be the featured color of the trains. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152280924048368&set=a.226729858367.174830.155893938367&type=1&theater This is fantastic, Banshee and The Bat. going to be good for Kings Island next year!

It isn't similar it IS the swarm train with a fancy paintjob!

I forgot to say, on www.coasterfriends.de forum on their topic http://www.coasterfriends.de/forum/4108-2014-neuheit-b-m-wing-coaster-heide-park-131.html

Heide's WIng coaster train, essentially the exact same as the Swarm but with bigger fangs and a black colour instead of grey.